It is an aside, but: I am not sure I encountered any professional photographers saying that in 2005, FWIW; only non-serious photographers were still prattling on about e.g. the mystical and conveniently malleable "theoretical" resolution of film being something that would prevent them ever switching.

There were still valid practical and technical objections for many (indeed, there still is at least one technical objection against digital), the philosophical objections are still as valid as they were (and if you ask me digital has not come close to delivering on its promise to be less environmentally harmful).

But every working press photographer knew they would switch when there were full-frame sensors that were in range of budget planning that shot without quality compromise at the ISO speed they needed or when the organisations they worked for completed their own digital transition. Every working fashion photographer knew that viable cameras already existed.

ETA: Did it disrupt the wider industry? Obviously. Devastatingly. For photographers? It lowered the barrier to entry and the amount they could charge. But any working photographer had encountered that at least once (autofocus SLRs did the same thing, minilabs did the same thing, E6 did it, etc. etc.) and in many ways it was a simple enabling technology because their workflows were also shifting towards digital so it was just the arrival of a DDD workflow at some level.

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Putting aside that aside, I am really not convinced your comparison isn't a category error, but it is definitely an interesting one for a couple of reasons I need to think about for a lot longer.

Not least that digital photography triggered a wave of early retirements and career switches, that I think the same thing is coming in the IT industry, and that I think those retirements will be much more damaging. AI has so radically toxified the industry that it is beginning to drive people with experience and a decade or more of working life away. I consider my own tech retirement to have already happened (I am a freelancer and I am still working, but I have psychologically retired, and very early; I plan to live out my working life somewhere else, and help people resisting AI to continue to resist it)

> it is beginning to drive people with experience and a decade or more of working life away.

I was planning to work until mid 60's FT but retired this year because of, as you put it, AI toxification.