A while ago I wrote about how the "A" in "AI" stands for "Artificial", and that we shouldn't forget that. Today I want to highlight another meaning of "A": "Apathy":

Behaviour that shows no interest or energy and shows that someone is unwilling to take action, especially over something important – Cambridge Dictionary

My manager told me to "find at least one thing that gives me joy". She had the rare quality of understanding that a happy employee is the key to everything else. Unfortunately, I've also had first-hand experience with the opposite side of management, and know that her mindset was probably the exception to the rule.

What worries me are developers are completely loosing their joy in coding these days. More and more develop an apathy towards their craft. AI-driven development has shaken so many talented people, to the point where I'm worried about the long-term effects on our trade in the coming years.

To managers and decision makers, I urge you: don't loose track of the big picture. Developer happiness pays in the long run; think about more than just the next quarter.

To all those talented programmers out there who've lost joy in their craft and experience that apathy first-hand: find at least one thing that gives you joy. Maybe that one thing is even outside of programming, maybe even completely away from a computer. Life is about more than being an LLM code reviewer, don't forget that.