AI won't eliminate programmers but will change their work, with manual coding becoming increasingly marginal.

How long can programmers keep their jobs in the AI era? Optimists and pessimists are at war, but an old foreign analysis might be more reliable.

The core view: software development is essentially an industrial process that pursues efficiency, cost, and stability, and AI happens to fit this trend.

AI won't make programmers obsolete, but it will change the job

Advancing AI and more powerful coding agents will pressure companies to push programmers to use AI more. Programmers' tasks will shift to: improving AI, reviewing AI code, and testing AI changes.

Projects in niche languages may be rewritten into mainstream ones, manual coding will be restricted, possibly confined to hobby time.

LLM optimization, the new game in town

Previously, SEO was dominant; now "LLM optimization" is emerging. Websites can embed hidden prompts to make AI crawlers prioritize their content.

TEMU-ification of software, quality vs. low price

Just like cheap goods, AI-generated cheap content will flood the market, splitting it into low-end and high-end segments.