Haven't we been saying similar for all other aspects of software engineering too as they have changed over time? Writing code is just one responsibility amongst many.

I don't want code from someone/something that doesn't know the needs of the business, cannot find where to compromise effectively, does not understand the deployment environments their app will run in, would not know how to respond to an incident with their application in production, etc.

I don't think writing code with AI is relevant to career progress at all. What matters that I can hold someone accountable for the code we have in prod, and they'd better have answers or they don't have a job.

If they are dependable there, only then they can be trusted with more responsibility. That's all we're really talking about. You get paid to be accountable. You do not get paid to do one narrow thing well. It should not take you a decade to read and write code quickly and effectively. I'd argue that should have happened when you were in high school and college (how it was for everyone in upper management right now).

I feel like the quality of new hires has progressively become worse over the years, and we have made so many concessions to remedy it (AI included), and all it's doing is making the problem worse.