(Un)changing

For the general public, AI was not really a topic of conversation before 2022. Now it seems everywhere. The rate of change in that field has been tremendous in the last decade and especially in the last few years. For years, there was a widely repeated narrative of a skills shortage in the software engineering job market. Young people making decisions about their future were encouraged to pursue courses of study in computer science, software engineering and related fields. In recent years, the industry has repeatedly seen widespread layoffs and there have been oft-repeated concerns about how AI is affecting the profession and perhaps particularly early-career jobs in the field. This is not just about AI, nor software engineering. Turn on the news, skim the headlines or flip through your favorite periodicals. Change is all around us, all the time. It is a fact of life. And yet. One of my favorite books from the last few years is Same as Ever, by Morgan Housel. In it – and by way of…