Agreed. I think the opinion on AI is split into two camps, people who's enjoyment from programming came from writing the code and people who like building things. It's really undeniable at this point that AI has changed the job and I really enjoy it now more than ever, I can come up with an idea, guide an LLM through the steps to build it and have it be a real thing faster than I ever could have imagined.
Yeah LLMs aren't perfect, there is back and forth along the way and if you just let it loose you are going to end up with slop but I feel like we can achieve better quality now in a shorter amount of time using the tool properly. I'm not sure if I am just naive but I am really excited about the possibilities now and have been spending more time than ever building what I want. I used to think that writing the code was the enjoyable part for me but I think it was just building things.
I empathize with people in the other camp who got into it for the love of the code and now that part of the job is being taken away but I think it would benefit them to be honest about LLMs and try and work out a path forward here rather than just "my function is better than an LLM one, LLMs are just slop machines"