This feels like wishful thinking. Any automated system (cars, LLMs, etc) only need to be better than a human doing that job. Your example, for, um, example, ignores that self-driving trucks don't need to take sleep breaks, or bathroom breaks, or spend time with their families, etc.
Using the assumption that this is the bottom of the curve for this LLM technology and that we still have a lot of expansion in the tech coming in a relatively short amount of time, then I would guess that any job that makes art that is "work for hire" will cease to exist, and I imagine programming is going to take a pretty big hit in available jobs. I don't think you'll be able to get rid of human programmers altogether, but you'll need way fewer of them.
Isn't this functionally the same thing? What happens to smaller companies in this hypothetical? Are you not assuming that they get pushed out of the market shortly thereafter?
I am assuming this. I am assuming that we're at the bottom of this technology's sigmoid curve, there is going to be a ton of growth in a relatively short amount of time. I guess we'll have to wait to see which one of us has a better prediction.
You have described the state of LLMs right now. Programming languages seem like a perfect fit for a LLM; they're extremely structured and meticulously (well, mostly) defined. The concepts and algorithms used not overly complex for a LLM. There doesn't need to be much in the way of novel creativity create solutions for standard use cases. The biggest difficulty I've seen is just getting the prompting clear enough. I think a majority of the software engineering field is on the chopping block, just like the "art for hire" crowd. People pushing the limits of the fields will be safe but that's a catch 22, isn't it? If low-level entry is impossible, how does one get to be a high-level professional?
And even if we take your [implied] stance that this is the top of the S-curve and LLMs aren't going to get much better-- it will still be a useful tool for human programmers to increase productivity and reduce available jobs.