While AI is writing much much more of my code these days, I still need to be able to speak intelligently about what I am building, why I chose a given design and the tradeoffs between alternatives. When fixing things, it's still important to understand what broke and why. I don't think that will ever change in any organization that operates in high compliance environments or cares about delivering high quality products.

I don't think programming becoming 'easier' has make understanding programs any easier or less important. Even if all of the above goes away, I think computer science has taught me a lot about how to think about problems.

[flagged]