Excellently put. IMO the worst/scariest thing about AI is what it has done to the methods and work habits of some of the people who I've always looked up to as good software engineers. They now earnestly say things like "We don't have to look at code, understand it, or review it anymore. AI does all that." and "We don't have to test our software because if a bug is found in prod, you just tell the AI to fix it and deploy it instantly." Decades of software best practices thrown out the window in a year because of this psychosis!

> It's dramatically reduced the value of code, which has derailed a lot of careers who have built their entire adult life around the idea that code would remain valuable

I just don't relate to this sentiment. I wasn’t the fastest typer or the quickest at designing a solution pre-AI, but I was able to learn, build, and maintain systems. My value wasn’t in how fast or how much code I could write, it was in my ability to understand what the hell is going on and do something with that knowledge.

That’s still the case now, even though Kent from Accounting could theoretically one shot some of the software I build. He wouldn’t know what to do with the software, and he wouldn’t want it because now it’s his problem.

The tech industry oversees invisible Rube Goldberg’s machines of flowing electrons. Most people don’t want to learn or deal with its issues. And since AI is yet another complication piled on top of the machine, I feel confident that my career will still have value.