I am feeling this loss. I spent most of mu career scrupulously avoiding leadership positions because what I really like is the simple joy of making things with my own two hands.

Many are calling people like me Luddites for mourning this, and I think that I am prepared to wear that label with pride. I own multiple looms and a spinning wheel, so I think I may be in a better position speculates on how the Luddites felt than most people are nowadays.

And what I see is that the economic realities are what they are - like what happened to cottage industry textile work, making software by hand is no longer the economical option. Or at least, soon enough it won’t be. I can fret about deskilling all I like, but it seems that soon enough these skills won’t be particularly valuable except as a form of entertainment.

Perhaps the coding agents won’t be able to make certain things or use certain techniques. That was the case for textile manufacturing equipment, too. If so then the world at large will simply learn to live without. The techniques will live on, of course, but their practical value will be as an entertainment for enthusiasts and a way for them to recognize one another when we see it in each others’ work.

It’s not a terrible future, I suppose, in à long enough view. The world will move on, just like it did after the Industrial Revolution. But, perhaps also like the Industrial Revolution and other similar points in history, not until after we get through another period where a small cadre of wealthy elites who own and control this new equipment use that power to usher in a new era of neofeudalism. Hopefully this time they won’t start quite so many wars while they enjoy their power trips.