How do you plan to make a living after AI takes your job?

IMHO no one know what the heck is going to happen. Probably will have to adapt to the situation as needed... In other words, it's too hard to predict to come up with a plan ahead of time?

> all productivity saving technologies have always been net positive in the amount of jobs created

To what extent has the net increase in jobs been because there have just been more people who needed to work in order for society to not collapse?

Population growth is slowing (expected to peak in 2080-ish). To some, AI feels like a different sort of "productivity enhancer" than we've seen in this past.

I don't think the person's premise is flawed. It's more that you just disagree with it.

I plan to do the same thing I did the last several times new automation took my old job: carry right along making software.

Jevons' paradox tells us that AI will create more demand for software than ever. I see no threat to my career here.

My plan is to learn how to use AI and be proficient with it, so they will be more likely to keep me, as opposed to those who refuse to use it. Some people on my team still refuse to use AI, thinking you can't trust anything since it's all hallucinations.

I remember saying ~2 years ago that people should probably assume the role they're in would be their last programming job. I feel like that was an unreasonably good prediction given almost everyone on HN at the time was arguing that LLMs were just stochastic parrots.

I suspect people will still be needed to create software for some time but increasingly it won't be software engineers who have spent decades learning syntax. It will be a relatively poorly paid role compared to today. If you're happy to be paid a fraction of what you're paid today, perhaps you can transition into a vibe coder role.

There will probably be some more senior people maintaining projects, but the number of people like this you'd realistically need at any org is probably in the single digits. The main hiring criteria will be that they're very personable, not the typical anti-social engineer type. The autistic 10x engineer's value is basically zero in this new AI economy.

Longer term (~10-20 years) we're all dead anyway so your priority probably shouldn't be to optimise for income or prestige.