This post reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad in the late 90s when I was mostly using VB6 and he was encouraging me to learn C++. Even back then, the syntax and ceremony of the language repulsed me, and my admittedly arrogant reply was that if I ever needed C++, I'd just hire someone to do that part for me.
For what it's worth, I still stand by that strategy 30 years later. Delegation is one of the most powerful tools we can use, and developers are usually really bad at it. I speculate that this is because we have egos and some part of my reptile brain feels like bringing in people who are better at something than I am is some kind of intellectual defeat. In reality, the opposite is true.
The lens that folks [who are anxious about forgetting how to program when using LLMs] should use is to ask themselves if they have the same existential crisis when hiring someone or working as part of a team. Does delegation make you dumber, smarter or something else?
In my case, I'm rarely as smart as when I effectively delegate things I'm less good at. In a universe where time is infinite, I could perhaps decide that it makes sense to be good at everything. In this reality, I'm more aware of how finite time is every morning when I wake up. It makes no sense for me to learn C++ for the few moments when arguably it would be handy if I knew it.
Ironically, it was ultimately video games - specifically, some hobby Unity development - that led to me learning just enough C++ to embarrass myself. And my dad never approved of video games, either.
Anyhow: if hiring someone to work on parts of your project doesn't make you less good at programming, I highly doubt that using an LLM makes you less good at programming either. In my experience, I'm actually feeling like a better developer these days because I'm getting so much more done in a shorter amount of time.