Some de-skill, but not all.
Somewhat relevant parallel..
Calculators exist, but not all is lost:
- lot of (most?) people can do basic multiplication (I’m too lazy to fetch any stats but I hope you’ll have some observations in your bubble dear reader)
- some people actually compete in mental calculations https://worldmentalcalculation.com/mental-calculations-world...
Same will be with software devs, enthusiasts will continue to exist.
Our class sizes at the university that I teach at have plummeted with the crash. What I'm hoping is that this means I'm just going to be teaching people who are actually interested in producing quality code.
> Some de-skill, but not all.
So are you agreeing with me or not? Because it's not black and white. Having a few non-deskilled developers around who do the equivalent of "compete in mental calculations" is the same as having none at all.
It's sort of like the retort "AI won't take all the jobs from humans, some will be left [at the very top and very bottom]." Even if true, fat lot of good it does most people who would be unemployed in that scenario.
Also, if you get widespread deskilling, but massive increases in code production due to AI, you're probably still going to get "organizations falling into the trap" like the OP describes and the remaining skilled people getting burned out trying to hold it all together. Modern American business culture (in aggregate) is incapable of learning to not burn people out until everyone is already burned out, only then will it pay attention to the problem (and then probably forget what they learned and start repeat it in 10 years).