One of the problems that I have with the "AI might replace some menial jobs, but people should aspire to bigger and better things" argument is that a lot of menial jobs are training for those bigger and better things.
"Sure, ChatGPT can write some basic code, but it can't come up with creative solutions like I can." Yeah, that's true. But how did I get to the point of being able to make creative solutions? Years of working in the trenches, learning all the ins and outs of how to code and not over-engineer that college never even had a hope of teaching me.
Yes, nobody wants a life-long career developing formulaic CRUD apps, or writing catalog product descriptions, or making logos for every tom-dick-or-harry consulting shop with delusions of grandeur. But if you want to become a skilled developer, writer, or designer, you kinda need to grind through a lot of this bullshit work to grow a sense of taste to be any good at the higher-level work.
So what happens when we cut off that pipeline of junior jobs? It's going to happen, and it's going to happen from the bottom, up. We're not going to see big corporations take risks on trying AI software developers when they have thousands of resumes of the best undergrads to sift through every month. We're going to see it from the companies on the fringe, who couldn't afford to hire even a junior developer. They're going to take a low-risk chance because the alternative is just not do the work at all. And they'll prove out the model and 20 years later the only people who understand the basics anymore will be more interested in management positions than writing yet another Django app, and 20 more years later they'll be retiring with nobody else coming in behind them.