>I think part of the problem a lot of senior devs are having is that they see what they do as an artisanal craft. The rest of the world just sees the code as a means to an end.

Then you haven't been a senior dev long enough.

We want code that will be good enough because we will have to maintain it for years (or inherit maintaining from someone else), we want it to be clean enough that adding new features isn't a pain and architected well enough that it doesn't need major rewrite to do so.

Of course if code is throwaway that doesn't matter but if you're making long term product, making shit code now is taking on the debt you will have to pay off.

That is not to say "don't use AI for that", that is to say "actually go thru AI code and review whether it is done well enough". But many AI-first developers just ship first thing that compiles or passes tests, without looking.

> I don't care how elegantly my toaster was crafted as long as it toasts the bread and doesn't break.

...well if you want it to not break (and still be cheap) you have to put quite a bit of engineering into it.