General Discussion

I think we are so short on engineers that we still need them and will still need them to run AI and to do the critical thinking tasks along side AI.

The thing about engineering is engineers are already quite adaptive. SW engineers become experts in several domains just naturally, you learn the new work before you. Systems engineers even more so.

The idea of using AI to code and test mission critical software or hardware is pretty far away IMO. It would be treated like a qualified tool and be part of any aircrafts certification means of compliance which gets filed with the FAA and is good for 10 years to develop that airframe. So if you wanted to use AI to code any actual aircraft function, it would have to be in your plans to do so right now if you wanted to fly within 10 years. It's not in anyone's plans right now that I know of. But there's all sorts of artifacts that go along with development that AI could help produce or validate that aren't necessarily part of the cert package. It's complicated, to say the least.

I think the golden age of tech is misinterpreted. There aren't millions of narrow skilled engineers coding the same types of things over and over, there's more jack of all trades type engineers than that who aren't all that afraid of AI, more excited by it actually.