I think there is a meaningful distinction here. It's true that writing code has never been the sole work of a software engineer. However there is a qualitative difference between an engineer producing the code themselves and an engineer managing code generated by an LLM. When he writes there is "so much stuff" for humans to do outside of writing code I generally agree and would sum it up with one word: Accountability. Humans have to be accountable for that code in a lot of ways because ultimately accountability is something AI agents generally lack.

I think within the industry and practice there's going to be a renewed philosophical and psychological examination of exactly what accountability is over the next few years, and maybe some moral reckoning about it.

What makes a human a suitable source of accountability and an AI agent an unsuitable one? What is the quantity and quality of value in a "throat to choke", a human soul who is dependent on employment for income and social stature and is motivated to keep things from going wrong by threat of termination?