There are many crafts and professions in this world that have two rather different layers to them: The superficial layer that only cares about the end result, and the layer where the professional is passionate about the crafting itself, where the end result is rewarding but not the ultimate source of the passion for the craft (and, moreover, the end result is rewarding because of the effort put into it, rather than regardless of it.)
For example, to most people a car is just a convenient tool: It's very handy to travel to places and to transport people and stuff from one place to another. They don't really care all that much what happens under the hood as long as it works and gives them what they want.
But then there are the car enthusiasts: To them the passion is not just driving the car, but about what happens inside. They might spend hours and hours every day for example fixing an old car, or fine-tuning their existing car. Sometimes they spend more time in the garage tinkering with the innards of the car than actually driving it. The passion is in the mechanics of the car itself.
Technically speaking they spend thousands and thousands of hours of meticulous work on something that they wouldn't need to do, but that's not the point. It's not about whether you need to do it. It's about the passion for the craft.
It's a bit like fishing: Most people just want to go to the grocery store and buy a fish, they don't care about how that fish was caught. Many people, however, love the act of fishing itself. Sure, the fish you catch are a very nice reward, and feels rewarding, but it's the act of fishing that's the point. It's relaxing, it reduces stress, it's a way to go out there and be in the quiet of nature away from the ugliness of society.
Some people paint even though technically speaking that's completely unnecessary. If you want a picture you can just print one out with a computer in less then a minute. But that's not the point. It's the passion for the craft itself that's the point: The act of painting itself. It's not a question of whether it's "useful" or "useless", or whether there would be "faster" and "more efficient" ways of doing it. That's irrelevant.
Computer programming is the same thing: For some people it's just a necessary nuisance happening under the hood. They don't care how it's done, or what's happening there at the lower level, they just care about the end result, the bottom line. They want working results, they don't care how it's done. In fact, if they could get rid of the programmers completely, they would do that in a heartbeat.
To most computer programmers, however, it's not so much about the end result, it's about the craft. Yes, the end result, when it works, is very rewarding, feels rewarding, feels like an accomplishment. However, that's not the main point, the main passion. The real passion is in the craft itself: Thinking about how you will write the program, how you will organize it, thinking about and planning the algorithms and data structures, and how to implement them.
The end result does not feel rewarding just because it exists. It feels rewarding precisely because you put thought, effort and work into it. It feels rewarding precisely because it is your handiwork, the result of your intellectual effort, your planning, your writing, your skills, your knowledge.
Remove all of that, and the end result does not feel rewarding anymore. It's not any kind of "reward" to anything at all. It just exists. It's like a fish in the grocery store: You just buy it and you get it. It doesn't feel "rewarding" because you didn't personally put any effort in fishing it. The fish, however, feels significantly more rewarding if it was you who went out there and fished it. When it's the result of your own handiwork.
I'm not passionate about computer programming because I merely care about the end result. Just like people "uselessly" tinkering with cars for thousands of hours, or people painting even though technically speaking they wouldn't need to do that, the passion is in the doing, in the craft itself, not merely in the end result.
I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance who clearly does not share this same passion with me, at least not to the same extent. He works somewhere doing some kind of web development stuff, and he told me how recently AI helped him do in two days what would have normally taken over two weeks, and without him having to write a single line of code.
It didn't just give me vibes of "why should I spend two weeks writing code for this when I can just tell an AI to do it for me in a small fraction of the time", but it somehow just hit me with a sad realization:
It is highly likely that very soon I will be out of my job as a computer programmer. Replaced by AI, of course.
That's because I have literally zero interest in using AI for programming. None. I don't do programming just to command some AI to do it for me. I do it for the same reason a car enthusiast tinkers with cars and why a painter still paints in the traditional way: It's the passion for the craft, not the end result.
If I could just tell some stupid program to do the thing for me, that would remove all the passion for the craft. A car enthusiast doesn't go to someone else and tell him "hey, fine-tune my car for me": He does it himself because that's his passion. An avid painter does not go to someone else, and particularly not a computer, and tell him "do this painting for me": He does the painting himself because that's his passion.
So no, I will not go to some stupid program and tell it "implement this program for me" because that's not where my passion is. I have literally zero interest in just commanding others to do my work for me. That's not intellectually challenging. That's not where my skills and expertise are.
If all companies will in the near future move to AI because it delivers them results in a small fraction of the time, then so be it. I'm out. I'll have to figure out something else to do because I have zero interest. If my expertise is no longer needed, then so be it.
Sadly, I believe it's only a question of how long I have left because I'll be out. Hopefully it will be at least a few years still. After that, AI will have one extra job killed to its scorecard.
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