>> Or bosses will just expect more output for same/less pay, with them having to use AI to keep up.

Anecdotal evidence to support this.

I work with both dev and design teams. Upper management has already gone through several layoffs and offshoring of the two dev teams I work with. The devs they did keep were exactly what you said. The capable ones who reliably closed their Jira tickets. Never missed a deadline for building their features or components. And now? Their work has tripled and now the only help they get from management? "Start to figure out how to leverage AI, we're going to be a in hiring freeze for the next 10 months."

The double whammy of losing onshore team members and not getting any help from management to fix the problem they just created and essentially just telling them to figure out how to use AI to keep up is pretty staggering.

I would echo what one of the devs told me, "If this is the new "AI era" than you can count me right the fuck out of it."