How to prepare for AI taking my programming job?

Question

Personally I am convinced that AI will make it easier and easier to create sufficiently good software without the need of skilled and experienced engineers. It might not be in 5 or 10 years, but I believe it will happen long before my retirement.To evade the fallout on salary and job opportunities, what are things one can do to prepare? Are there any skills that make one less susceptible to AI replacement? Any fields within engineering (or engineering adjacent) one should get into?

criticas · Accepted Answer

I heard the same thing in the 90's, when moving IT jobs to the three I's (India, Israel, Ireland) was all the rage. I figured out which parts of the job were hardest to move, and got good at those. Fortunately, defects in quality and responsiveness killed many of those initiatives.Focus on the parts of the job that aren't easy to automate. For example, AI may become good at writing code, but not at figuring out what code to write. Get good at Architecture and Requirements, and understanding the business you support.

amozoss · Answer

I often feel like software engineering will be the last to go. Seems like it's easier to replace everyone else's jobs too with AI (like all the people who type things in spreadsheets all day).
I do see your point though to some degree. E.g. It's getting easier to make landing pages with no coding experience. At the same time though, landing pages get more complex requirements to stand out from the crowd. So there will always be room for customized software imo.
That being said, you could always make the AI that replaces your job now and let it run for 5 to 10 years or until they catch you