Kind of a tangential comment, but something I think about semi-regularly is that AI in a way feels like overkill for removing the programming part of software e

Kind of a tangential comment, but something I think about semi-regularly is that AI in a way feels like overkill for removing the programming part of software engineering. When you think about it, it's kind of surprising that we still program using text editors and IDEs instead of an interface that's more graphical. For that matter, it's also kind of surprising that GUI nocode builders have yet to really make an impact on the job market. Webflow exists, and has countless predecessors, and yet it and its competitors aren't really an existential threat to web developers. His use of the term "shape rotator" kind of helps me articulate my thoughts on the matter. My theory is that attempts to democratize software authorship focus too much on the writing code part, but ultimately do nothing to address the "shape rotator" part, i.e. imagining the problem(s) you're trying to solve as abstract shapes. When I imagine the problem at hand, I construct a kind of mental model of it without really thinking about it all that much. With that in mind, could our current approach to AI ultimately scale to the point where non-shape-rotators can finally write software as capably, or will it reach a plateau where shape rotators still retain their monopoly on software authorship? If it's the latter case, then AI might not prove that much of a threat to programming simply because shape rotators seem to really like their text-editors, and really like to program EDIT: some quick follow-up remarks, but despite feeling that AI art generators are unethical, I also feel at the same time that we're overestimating their potential damage because I think they democratize the wrong thing, which in this case is skill with a paintbrush or similar equivalent, yet they don't really democratize creativity and imagination. I think a lot of AI art is ugly, but I think that's largely due to the fact that the people using AI art generators simply aren't that creative or imaginative. By contrast, people who are creative and imaginative will understand that it's easier to get what they're looking for simply by a more direct, hands-on approach, rather than trying to find "good enough" through a prompt. Sure, people will get good-enough for free in lieu of paying someone more for better, but that's been an issue in the creative industry well before the advent of AI, and often with predictable results. Namely, good-enough doesn't typically create value so much as serve as a placeholder for something deemed essential, i.e. it's good-enough. A restaurant with good-enough branding, or a book with a good-enough book cover, is the same as a restaurant with no-branding or a book with no cover.