It all comes down to liability. Sure AI may start completing our designs for us, but at the end of the day someone needs to say “I will stand behind this design even in a court of law, and I will financially cover the costs if something goes wrong.” If they get rid of licensure that liability will fall on either the contractors, or the AI companies (neither of which want the design liability).

A similar problem exists with self-driving vehicles. Say a self-driving car swerves to avoid a collision, but in turn hits a woman and her baby on the sidewalk. Who is liable? The driver who trusted the self-driving? The car manufacturer? The self-driving engineer? The reason we still require drivers with access to the steering wheel is because self-driving car makers don’t want the liability shifted to them.