>> AI will eat the "software professionals"
you mean AI will eat everyone, because if software professionals will be automated - all other white collar jobs will be too via software.
And then all resources will be poured in hardware and blue collar jobs will be automated too, at least those that have more value.
Once an AI runs a single company well, all publicly traded companies will have a legal obligation to at least consider replacing the C-suite with AI. In theory. I'll believe it when I see it.
That’s the thing here. Software engineering is an intelligence-complete problem. If AI can solve it, then it can solve any sort of knowledge work like accounting, financial analysis, etc