In the long term, it depends on how good AI systems get, but right now they have a long way to go before they can be trusted to work autonomously. Junior devs a

In the long term, it depends on how good AI systems get, but right now they have a long way to go before they can be trusted to work autonomously. Junior devs are an investment, and even before AI were a net negative to productivity; they’ve always been hired for their potential and capability to grow. AI changes nothing here. The biggest danger I see is if AI disrupts the mastery process somehow for these devs. In the short term, naive bosses may try to offload too much work to AI, but someday they’ll realize their mistake. I don’t think programmers are going anywhere.