Comment by skybrian

Setting up automation as the enemy is an odd thing for programmers to be doing. I mean, if you’re a programmer and you’re not automating away tasks, both for yourself and other people, what are you even doing?

Also, “this time it’s different” depends on the framing. A cynical programmer who has seen new programming tools hyped too many times would make a different argument: At the beginning of the dot-com era, you could get a job writing HTML pages. That’s been automated away, so you need more skill now. It hasn’t resulting in fewer software-engineering jobs so far.

But that’s not entirely convincing either. Predicting the future is difficult. Sometimes the future is different. Making someone else’s scenario sound foolish won’t actually rule anything out.