"I firmly believe that AI will not replace developers, but a developer using AI will replace a developer who does not." Ugh, anyone who says that and really believes it can no longer see common sense through the hype goggles. It's just stupid and completely 100% wrong, like saying all musicians will use autotune in the future because it makes the music better. It's the same as betting that there will be no new invent…
Do the people in this corner use compilers? Would they agree that programmers who don't use them* have been replaced by those that do? *: I'm aware of cases like the recent ffmpg assembly usage that gave a big performance boost. When talking about industrial trend lines, I'm OK with admitting 0.001% exceptions. (Apologies if it comes across as snarky or pat, but I honestly think the comparison is reasonable.)
Where would you put the peak? Fortran was invented in the 50’s. The total population of programmers was tiny back then…