I try to keep an open mind to both sides of the issue, but I confess that I, personally, am finding AI liberating for both software development (and my electronics hobby).

Regarding software, I am clearly in the camp of developers for whom the coding is the necessary evil to get the tool/product that I had in my mind before I began. Obviously, LLMs benefit here.

As an example, lately I am diving into screen-printing and there are little tools that I want for myself—the coding to implement those looked to me like a series of hurdles that I was not going to enjoy.

"Hey, Gemini, I want an optical half-toning algorithm that takes these params, outputs this…" "Python is a pain, can you rewrite it in Javascript, single-page HTML?" "A splitter for the preview, a way to toggle between 1x and Fit-To-View."

A day or two later and I'm burning screens using the web front-end. And on to another tool…

https://engineersneedart.com/halftone/