I agree completely. This is a fundamentally different change than the ones that came before. Calculators, assemblers, higher level languages, none of these actually removed the _reasoning_ the engineer has to do, they just provide abstractions that make this reasoning easier. What reason is there to believe LLMs will remain "assistants" instead of becoming outright replacements? If LLMs can do the reasoning all the way from high level description down to implementation, what prevents them from doing the high level describing too?

In general, with the technology advancing as rapidly as it is, and the trillions of dollars oriented towards replacing knowledge work, I don't see a future in this field. And that's despite me being on a very promising path myself! I'm 25, in the middle of a CS PhD in Germany, with an impressive CV behind me. My head may be the last on the chopping block, but I'd be surprised if it buys me more than a few years once programmer obsolescence truly kicks in.

Indeed, what I think are safe jobs are jobs with fundamental human interaction. Nurses, doctors, kindergarten teachers. I myself have been considering pivoting to becoming a skiing teacher.

Maybe one good thing that comes out of this is breaking my "wunderkind" illusion. I spent my teens writing C++ code instead of going out socializing and making friends. Of course, I still did these things, but I could've been far less of a hermit.

I mirror your sentiment of spending these next few years living life; Real life. My advice: Stop sacrificing the now for the future. See the world, go on hikes with friends, go skiing, attend that bouldering thing your friends have been telling you about. If programming is something you like doing, then by all means keep going and enjoy it. I will likely keep programming too, it's just no longer the only thing I focus on.

Edit: improve flow of last paragraph