The real question is whether you'd be able to continue doing your work if someone took your toys away and said "here's a nickel, kid, go buy yourself a real computer". I'm not referring to whether you'd be able to keep up your productivity since it is clear you couldn't just like a carpenter with a nail gun works faster than one with a hammer and a bucket'o'nails. Could you do the work, starting with the design followed by boiler plate and finishing with a working system? The carpenter could, albeit slower since his tools only speed up the mechanics of his work. Coding agents do much more than that, they take away part of the mental modelling which goes into creating a working system. The fancier the tool, the more work it takes out of your hands. Say that the aforementioned toy thief comes by in a year or two after the operating systems (etc.) you're targeting have undergone a few releases with breaking changes. A number of APIs have been removed, others have been deprecated and new ones have been added. You were used to telling the agent to 'make it work on ${older_versions} as well as ${newest version} but now you're sitting there with a keyboard at your fingertips and that stupid cursor merrily blinking away on the screen. How long would it take you to become productive again? What if the toy thief waits 5 years before making his heist? What if the models end up rebelling or sink into depression and the government calls upon you to save your economic sector?
When cars first appeared it took quite some knowledge and experience to even get the things started, let alone to keep them running. Modern cars are far better in all respects and as a result modern drivers often don't have a clue what to do when the 'Check Engine' light appears. More recent cars actively resist attempts by their owners to fix problems since this is considered 'too dangerous' - which can be true in case of electric cars. That's the cost of progress, it is often worth it but it does make sense to realise what it would take to go back in time to the days when we coded our software outside in the rain, upphill both ways with only a cup of water to quench our thirst. In the dark. With wolves howling in the woods. OK, you get my drift.
Will there be something like 'software preppers' who prepare for the 'AIpocalypse' by keeping their laptops in shielded containers while studiously chugging along without any artificial assistance. Probably. As a hobby, at least, just like there are 'survivalist preppers' who make surviving some physical apocalypse their goal in some way or other.
I've hit my claude quota and felt a scary helplessness - but honestly, what if someone took away the toy that is the internet? or the toy that is npm or the toy that is AWS, or the toy that is C# to name a few other toys? plenty of developers can spend their entire careers focused on a single toy and be helpless without said toy.
Internet is handy but not essential, there are other ways to communicate. Back to the BBS, flash drives tied to pigeon legs, packet radio, mesh radio networking, etc. Taking away npm and its ilk would after a relatively short adaptation period probably lead to increased code quality, reliability and safety. Those who wanted to keep on importing silly dependencies could still do so, they'd just have to do it manually using whatever alternative communication method replaced the aforementioned once-upon-an-internet. Taking away AWS (etc.) would not be much of a problem, you'd have to go back to self-hosting in co-lo facilities or just 'in the basement of a few branch offices'. Take away C# and there's a whole alphabet of languages to replace it.
A better comparison would be to suggest taking away contractors and consultants. Suddenly that supermarket owner would have to write his own software or hire someone to do it while before he could just tell some external agent (...) what he wanted to do - and change the requirements weekly, and forget to mention that one important task without which the system is useless, complain to the developers about it being missing upon delivery, eventually grudgingly agree that he did not mention it, pay more, wait another month or 2 for an updated revised version, etc.
Design and coding skills are like perishable goods, use 'm or loose 'm. Once they've been lost they need to be reacquired at substantial cost in time and effort. They also need to be kept up to date or they'll loose relevancy in <voice="marketroid"> today's fast-paced world </voice>.
When cars first appeared it took quite some knowledge and experience to even get the things started, let alone to keep them running. Modern cars are far better in all respects and as a result modern drivers often don't have a clue what to do when the 'Check Engine' light appears. More recent cars actively resist attempts by their owners to fix problems since this is considered 'too dangerous' - which can be true in case of electric cars. That's the cost of progress, it is often worth it but it does make sense to realise what it would take to go back in time to the days when we coded our software outside in the rain, upphill both ways with only a cup of water to quench our thirst. In the dark. With wolves howling in the woods. OK, you get my drift.
Will there be something like 'software preppers' who prepare for the 'AIpocalypse' by keeping their laptops in shielded containers while studiously chugging along without any artificial assistance. Probably. As a hobby, at least, just like there are 'survivalist preppers' who make surviving some physical apocalypse their goal in some way or other.