This is spot on. Fully agree with this point: > Chat-oriented programming is hard, but many folks believe that autonomous agents are right around the corner, a

This is spot on. Fully agree with this point: > Chat-oriented programming is hard, but many folks believe that autonomous agents are right around the corner, and that they will handle all that heavy lifting for you. You’ll just need to write short prompts and spot-check the results, with much less toil involved. [...] I think those people are smoking some serious crack. But many are well-funded, so they’re going to get a chance to give it the old college try, burning investor money like jet fuel along the way. I think the time-horizon presented by the author is about right. Like they mention, sure, we could see a magical breakthrough soon, but it's not likely. I'd argue that we won't see 100% autonomy on the code side in our lifetime (and I use an LLM every day) based on current evidence. The models are good, but they're several iterations away from evening being close to autopilot. In the event that we do get 100% autonomy, a whole lot more hell is going to break loose than what's happening with CHOP (as the author refers to it). I think the biggest nightmare that lies ahead is the point in the metaphorical chart where new/junior programmers "learn" by getting some result that passes the sniff test and assume it's correct (i.e., they don't learn the gritty details you get from experience, just surface level knowledge). Eventually, we'll hit a point where the majority of programmers learn this way, which means technological progress will come to a halt first, and second, when serious bugs inevitably creep up, there will be a relatively small pool—if not non-existent—of people who can fix it (and will charge handsomely to do so). Sadly, I think the only real solution is to just play it by ear. But the advice in the article is sound: if you're not learning/using this stuff now, you're falling behind. If you're a junior trying to level up, don't rely on your job or co-workers to teach you. Start building stuff (in whatever area you're trying to work in) in your spare time and consider it an investment in your future.