For simple data import / export tasks, simple CRUD, generic admin dashboards, I agree that those tasks likely will be solvable by AI in the not too distant future.
As a matter of fact, I think it's somewhat bewildering we still need human developers for that kind of task because the tasks themselves don't really require a lot of intelligence. Problem is, the technologies and systems we use to implement them today still require a lot of human interaction and specialist knowledge.
Other than that, implementing an AI that is capable of understanding business problems and solving them via code probably is nothing short of artificial general intelligence. In that case we won't have to worry about not being needed anymore anyway because by then we'll either very rapidly have a post-scarcity economy or you know ... Skynet ...
My feeling is well. If standard CRUD coding gets automated nicely, my feeling is that many (at least some?) CRUD type coders could simply move into a sort of AI business analyst type role. To be honest, business analysis is already a fair bit of the CRUD coder type job. Current AI requires training data in order to learn what the rules are, which means that most likely they will need a team to formulate the rules in a manner that the AI understands.
If AI gets to that level where the programmer is completely replaced, well, regarding "the top" that "wants us gone"... many of them would also be gone. There's no reason a general AI of that power could not automate (to give typical "the top" occupations) much of finance, law, health care, or even management / executive work.
We already have a post-scarcity economy. There is enough of everything to go around for everybody. Kropotkin talked about this in "The Conquest of Bread" in the 19th century. If history is a lesson, no degree of abundance will result in collective plenty.
The total output of the world economy is about $13,000 worth of goods and services per person per year. That's not enough to provide even just education and healthcare up to a standard that would be considered remotely acceptable by people in the west.
(For comparison: the average public school student in the US costs $12,000 to educate. And yet plenty of people will say that even that is not enough.)
But the good news is if we don't fuck up, that number will continue to grow nonlinearly, just as it has for many decades. We will live to see it cross the point where it really is high enough to give everybody a comfortable life.
> the average public school student in the US costs $12,000 to educate
Why does it cost $30,000 to educate a class of 30 kids for a month? The salary of the teacher should be <$5,000. Double, or triple that to include rent and other costs. It still comes out at half of $30K.
> no degree of abundance will result in collective plenty
Will it? When you look at most First World countries in general nobody there has to starve anymore.
In the Middle Ages only liege lords could get by without ever having to work. Nowadays, even middle-class people don't necessarily need to work till retirement age.
This is a policy choice. For many voters, it's far more important that nobody "gets something for nothing" than nobody starves to death. This has resulted in the benefits system being increasingly punitive leaving some people without money for food for weeks at a time.
Indeed, hunger is still a problem in the US. Our welfare system is so fragmented and conditional that there are numerous cracks where people of the wrong class/gender/neurotype/etc. can fall undetected and unhelped, and even in cases where resources are available, there is such a strong stigma against using them that some people don't even realize they have the option.
I feel there are a lot of areas where poverty exists in the US, and as a society, we should work to improve them. I disagree though, that 'hunger' is a problem we should be trying to address. If we're claiming that a class of people in society regularly don't get enough food, then I should see malnourished people regularly in the hospital emergency department where I work as a physician, and I never do, except in the case of alcoholics, other substance abusers, people with severe gastrointestinal disease, and some old people with severe dementia living on their own (in which case, the problem is their general inability to care for themselves, not inability to afford sufficient calories).
In fact, the most common nutritional problem seen among the poor is obesity. Fyi, all the hospitals I have worked in regularly over the last 8 years have been classified as 'medically underserved areas', which usually corresponds very closely with most other measures of poverty, so I don't think I am seeing an unrepresentative sample.
Edit: I should have made explicit, we should of course be putting a lot more effort into feeding those people who are malnourished around the world, of whom there are way too many.
i strongly recommend reading "the limits to growth" (don't remember authors, but it's easy to find) and "the culture" series by late mr Banks. we're nowhere near post-scarcity. in fact, i don't believe we can reach post-scarcity without a benevolent AGI that can deal with psychopaths.
1. You can't use standard UI automation test tools on it (easily).
2. This may just be my projects, but people tend to re-make excel on the web with it.
3. Its easy to get started coding with it, but quickly turns in to spaghetti filled with glass shards when you try to do advanced things with the controls.
They took a pretty good swing at solving CRUD with CASE tools. It was an interesting approach, but never had the flexibility to get by without customization.
I spent a few years of my life back in the 90s working on CASE tools at Oracle. The main useful remnant I now have of that time is a useful ability to spot when developers go too meta - i.e instead of just solving the problem in hand they try to build a generalized solution that can solve even problems they haven't seen yet.
Other than that, implementing an AI that is capable of understanding business problems and solving them via code probably is nothing short of artificial general intelligence. In that case we won't have to worry about not being needed anymore anyway because by then we'll either very rapidly have a post-scarcity economy or you know ... Skynet ...