AI Reflection: The Death of the 'Code-Typist'

Some time ago, maybe three years, I was in Lisbon with a friend, walking with our wives toward a coffee shop to eat the famous Pastel de Nata. On the way, we started talking about AI and when it might replace us.

We went through everything: the influencer hype, researcher predictions, and all the dramatic posts online. Back then, AI still felt weak. It hallucinated constantly, it was biased, and it rarely understood context. By the end of our talk, we agreed we were safe for at least another 2–4 years.

The biggest wall was context.

AI needed to fully understand what you wanted, and most people don’t even know how to express that clearly. If I asked for help, it gave me random snippets that kind of worked, but I still had to adjust everything, explain the missing pieces, and fix the hallucinations.

Honestly, it wasn’t much different from StackOverflow: you’d grab code that worked for someone else and spend an hour adapting it.

But things changed.

Now we have a "man in the middle": the AI Agent. It acts as a layer between you and the LLM, giving it real tools:

• File operations
• Terminal commands
• Browser search
• Task management

The LLM doesn’t have direct access to these things, but the agent does the messy work we used to do ourselves: searching, copying, pasting, and feeding context back into the model.

Today, if you ask “How does this app update a file?”, the system can literally search the project, find the exact piece of code, and show it to you. Not because the model became magical, but because the agent gave it the tools to actually investigate.

The Reality

There’s a part of the dev community that thinks writing code is the best way to prove your skills. Honestly, I think a well configured AI already writes better code than 90% of developers, especially those who entered the field in the last four years without fundamental knowledge.

They took fast YouTube courses and think programming is just solving little puzzles. They don’t know algorithms, architecture, or how to position themselves professionally.

If you’re the kind of person who only types code without thinking deeply, without discussing approaches, or reasoning about design, I have something to say to you: you will be replaced soon.

But if you’re not that kind of person, your spot is safe for a long time.

Software is a Living Organism

Our work has always been hard. Writing code is just a small part of it. The real value comes from our ability to:

1. Understand the business
2. Make decisions
3. See the bigger picture
4. Judge what actually brings value to the customer

AI frees us to focus on that instead of wasting hours on syntax or repetitive tasks. Asking AI to do something won’t replace you... because you’re not just an executor.

Of course, this also means the cycle is ending for people who used to “coast”: the ones who took days to deliver simple tasks, juggled multiple jobs, and avoided deep thinking. Companies are heavily investing in AI and building safe processes around it.

Daily AI usage isn’t optional anymore, it’s required.

But using AI alone won’t make you special. You still need to bring real value.

We’re heading into a new era. I hope I see you on the other side.