> One sunny spot I have is that life is very long.

Not sure exactly where you are in it, but as a 53 year old I disagree. The younger I was the less likely I would have been to disagree but imo/ime the older you get the faster it feels like it is flying by.

> and a full pivot is alright

The AI-related existential dread is that it is very unclear what a pivot looks like when the ground under everything is shifting all at once.

The shifting is certainly a lot more obvious in our career than some others, but all of that shift (so far) happened more or less in a mere 10 months and is accelerating. And I don't think it is very likely that our career will stay anomalous for very long in terms of how much AI impact there is.

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monknomo 18 hours ago | parent [-]

yeah, you're down to like 3/4 a career left, it makes sense that you feel that way. Less runway ought to feel different.

I do agree that a safe 'next' is unclear. But I also think if ai truly hits all knowledge work as hard as it might we're looking at up to 50% unemployment. Frankly there is no point career planning at all in that scenario. We will all have much larger problems.

And if it doesn't, then pivoting to some field with a combination of rewarding work and 'enough' pay seems sensible enough.

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spidersenses 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>some field with a combination of rewarding work and 'enough' pay seems sensible enough.

What makes you believe those jobs will still exist or will be available to you competing against massess of other now unemployed software devs? Overabundance of desperate workers will depress wages.

	▲	exe34 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> if ai truly hits all knowledge work as hard as it might we're looking at up to 50% unemployment. Frankly there is no point career planning at all in that scenario. We will all have much larger problems. You missed the happy path.