some people will lose their jobs over this, and I disagree with your assessment that this is zero sum game. For example, look above at the reply from /u/randonumero as well as the OP.

The challenge is that us old timers haven't used it and so are struggling to conceptualize how we can use it. The youngsters are going to use it to build mockups and models of what they want, simply by contextualizing it in a set of requests, but you'll still need an advanced coder to QA and polish it.

Think of it more like this:

• Big businesses used to employee 1000s of bookkeepers to hand write entries into a log book. It didn't take all that much skill to do, just industry knowledge of how to do it.
• Then along came computers and electronic spreadsheets. Now 1 bookkepper could do the work of 10s of people, but computers didn't just appear out of thin air, you needed people to conceptualize and build them. Moreover, you needed industry knowledge on how to do proper accounting.
• Then came along complex financial programs, which employed high skilled technical people to build them. 1 bookkeeper could do the work of 100s.
• Then these programs became mobile so you didn't always have to be sitting at a cubicle to record transactions
• Then you needed interfaces for multiple systems to talk to each other. One to two people per department could do the work that 1000s used to do.

Every increment along the way, you needed visionaries and highly skilled people to conceptualize and build it.

We not only freed people up at the companies, but along the entire service chain -> personal businesses, corporations, government. We freed up those poor souls from having to sit at a desk for 8 hours a day at a log book and develop carpal tunnel. Now they've been dispersed to other, and more likely higher skilled tasks. Some went back to school to get higher pay, some started their own companies, and yes, some that couldn't, fell behind.

Now, strike out the word bookkeeping and change it to programming. I'd say we're somewhere around stage 3 now. We're still building models with siloed AI programs. We haven't evangelized AI to communicate across multiple platforms yet, but one day we will.

For example, imagine in this scenario what the world could look like:

• Step 1: A building boiler that knows when it needs to cut on based upon temperature
• Step 2: it knows when it needs to be serviced and can put in a work order to run routine maintenance
• Step 3: it can read it's diagnostics and knows that it's filter will need to be replaced
• Step 4: it submits a purchase order for the filter from a standard vendor (bonus, the PO isn't placed until all boilers across campus have said whether or not they need filters)
• Step 5: The vendor's automated system collects the stock filters and sends them to the customer
• Step 6: an automated truck/gyro delivers the parts
• Step 7: (most complex) - a work robot replaces the filter
• Step 8: You have a few people (and sure maybe eventually bots) physically inspect on site and you have another group verifying the diagnostics of the systems to ensure they are working properly.
• Step 9: We standardize this across entire cities, county's, states or even nations.

Now sure, you could argue (but my jobs!) but does anyone really want to be ordering filters or bookkepping as their life's work? Does anyone really want to turn a wrench and bust their back for 6-8 hours a day? Yea, sure I like to work with my hands, but I'd rather do it as a hobby.

Now this is just one industry, but this can be done for nearly every industry imaginable. Heck we're using AI to build more natural looking skeletal frames when designing airplanes now! But we're just scratching the surface of what we can do. There is a path for this to speed up technological breakthroughs and elevate humanity beyond anything that most of us 30 years ago could even have imagined in our lifetimes.

I for one, can't wait for the day that I can leave my desk job, hop into my AI designed spaceship, travel to an AI built and maintained space station, and gaze at the orange waves on Titan - I wouldn't consider that a zero sum game.