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1 in 3 Developers Fear AI Will Replace Them (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: Evans Data Corp., in a survey of 550 software developers, asked them about the most worrisome thing in their careers. A plurality, 29%, chose this answer: "I and my development efforts are replaced by artificial intelligence." Surprisingly, this concern about A.I. topped the second-most identified worry, which was that the platform the developer is working on will become obsolete (23%), or doesn't catch on (14%). Concerns about A.I. replacing software developers has academic support. A study by Oxford University, The Future of Employment, warned that the work of software engineers may soon become computerized. Machine learning advances allow design choices that can be optimized by algorithms. According to Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data, the thought of obsolescence due to A.I., "was also more threatening than becoming old without a pension, being stifled at work by bad management, or by seeing their skills and tools become irrelevant."
As you get older, you have to specialize and eke out your own niche. Otherwise, you are competing with the 20-somethings on their turf and they will win everytime because their tats and ironic beards are cooler than yours. You can still make it in the 40s and coding, mainly because you see all the tomfoolery other people have done, have learned how to write code properly when they actually taught proper code design in college (versus coding in whatever language was in fashion), and can fix other people's crap with ease.
Even this won't ensure you have a career. In one's upper 30s, you need to start bucking for a management position, because once you are a manager, you then can get face time with higher-ups, and actually get known on a firstname basis... which means you wind up being last when the layoffs hit, while the people under you are swept out come the next "cloud computing" initative, offshoring push, or whatnot.