Comment by randcraw

This article resonates with me like no other has in years. I very recently retired after 40 years writing software because my role had evolved into a production-driven limbo. For the past decade I have scavenged and copied other peoples' code into bland cookie cutter utilities that fed, trained, ran, and summarized data mining ops. It has required not one whit of creative expression or 'flow', making my life's work as dis-engaging as that of... well... the most bland job you can imagine.

AI had nothing to do with my own loss of engagement, though certainly it won't cure what ailed me. In fact, AI promises to do to all of software development what the mechanized data mining process did to my sense of creative self-expression. It will squeeze all the fun out of it, reducing the joy of coding (and its design) to plug-and-chug, rinse, repeat.

IMHO the threat of AI to computer programming is not the loss of jobs. It's the loss of personal passionate engagement in the craft.