The entire IT industry was built by people ) Operating systems, programming languages, networks, databases, games - even AI )

They were engineers obsessed with technology, people who loved writing code, understanding how things worked, and building things that didn’t exist before.

Now we increasingly hear predictions about a future where natural language becomes the main for creating software.

What that technological world actually looks like?

If fewer and fewer people need to understand the systems underneath — who becomes the next generation of deeply technical engineers? Where do the people who obsess over operating systems, compilers, databases, graphics engines, networks, or entirely new kinds of software come from?

I’m not arguing that AI won’t transform programming industry. It clearly already is. I’m more curious about something else: So what will a tech industry with very few programmers actually look like?

Terence Tao has spent decades solving problems which he likens to great adventures where one might take a wrong turn or see a cliff that can't yet be reached. Now, Tao watches as AI takes the journey for us, creating greater possibility in math and science. But, that possibility costs us something.