The LLM hype and AI bubble seem unfazed by 2026. If anything, it seems to be getting stronger with no end in sight. One thing I don’t see discussed often, though, are the long-term effects of LLMs on the joy of programming.
Lets assume that the current trend regarding LLM’s ever-increasing adoption holds for a long time, and we end up in a future where “programming” is assumed to be tantamount to operating the slot machine of future-Claude until it spits out the finished product your boss wants (or he’ll do it himself, doesn’t matter).
With that future in mind, I ask myself two questions: Will people still enjoy programming, and is that even programming in the first place?
I’d argue the answer is No for both.
I fear the endgame of LLM coding agents is to empower people who do not like coding, to the detriment of those who do. Even if you used to like coding, you will probably like it less over time because of AI.[1]
So we seem stuck in a kind of cycle: immensely powerful economic and political incentives push AI coding, which makes coding less enjoyable, empowering people who don’t like coding to become more visible in the software industry, driving higher adoption of AI coding, making coding less enjoyable again, and so on.
Its safe to say most people on the planet do not enjoy coding. That is obvious and not a problem. However, a small fraction of people do enjoy coding. I’m not thinking of Leetcoders or the typical FAANG software developer. I’m thinking of the demoscene, 64k competitions and coding golf, as well as more mundane programming language dojos and web framework conferences. I’m thinking of people that enjoy programming and are good at it - and are paid to use their talent.
In this AI-first future, I don’t see those people thriving as they did until now. Technical mastery and artistic brilliance seem to lose their luster in this hypothetical future of perfect answers. It becomes a kind of tree-falling-in-the-forest thing. If you rack your brain for weeks writing a ray tracer for your thermostat only to find out AI has already done it tenfold better? Will it still be fun, or will it be disheartening? Will it even make sense to have a code golf competition if all the winning entries are from AI bots? Will it be fun?
Some enthusiasts will surely always exist, of course. There are still people that ride horses for pleasure and for a living. But the industry won’t need them like it does now. Those who dislike or are indifferent to programming will have taken over.
Of course, this problem is larger than just programming, with all kinds of professions, hobbies and human activities in general suffering in much the same way.
This is just one possible future. I hope it doesn’t come to pass, because I, for one, enjoy programming.
[1] Reviewing code is much less enjoyable than writing code, and you don’t learn nearly as much. Letting AI agents loose and reviewing their changes is supremely boring.