This will be short and sweet. AI will get better, more things will be automated, more jobs can be done by the machine. But I don't believe that will get rid of software engineering. That will only increase the demand.
Sure we won't be making simple frontends anymore or writing simple business logic or automation scripts or database queries. But we will be validating, we will be responsible for architecture, we will decide what the machine focuses on. The machine isn't omnipotent, it can't do everything at once, thus it needs a goal. If there's two competing companies that have access to very similar (or the same AI), the differentiator is the people. The people within the company decide what we should use the AI for. I believe the people who can best decide how to put AI to use are those who are well versed in not only how to use AI, but it's internals. And those who know most about how AI, software, and computers work under the hood are software engineers. Thus they would make better decisions on how to best use AI. Those who can understand past the abstraction, or look into the "black box" will be valuable.
There's Always Another Step
Throughout our history there have always been advancements. And the current "cutting edge" technology is what will allow us to build the next cutting edge technology. After Algebra there was Trigonometry, and after that there was Calculus. After the car there was the plane, then the space ship. Society will climb the stairs and reach the pinnacle only to discover that there is another step to take. People think that once AI gets better it will be able to do all our current work, therefore there is nothing left to do. I strongly believe that if it ever is able to do everything, then that will only create more work, it will pave the way for that next step. So instead of us doing the work we are doing now, we will be doing other software work.
I'll leave you with a final thought. In a world where technology is increasing, and only will increase further, does it really make sense to not learn about technology?
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