> Artists understand that AI is bad for art. Why don’t programmers understand that we are artists?
Because the vast majority of programmers are bad artists, they just did programming for money. Only few actually cared about true craftsmanship, readability for every level of programmers while maintaining maximum efficiency, true passionate programming or quality open-source without caring how much money earn. AI makes bad artists the best as they don't care the taste but quantity. Same applies for bad programmers.
I think almost all programmers realize they work for a business or are building one themselves. Spending time building something and focusing all your time on craft and beauty makes no sense in these situations. So, most folks that want to have an impact and progress their careers don’t focus just on that. When you have enough experience you start working on even higher level problems and don’t focus on the code itself, but more important problems the business needs addressed.
> they just did programming for money
Very reductive. I would consider myself a pretty mediocre programmer, but worked with a lot worse. I care about making useful things for other people. I care about quality but less so than utility. If I ever get to the point to not need to worry about money, I will still focus on utility over any artistic notion of the code that produces that utility. Sometimes those things align, sometimes they don’t, but I’m much happier shipping a messy to maintain thing that is useful to lots of people, than something that is algorithmicly elegant.
Programming makes a lot of talented people useful, and the world doesn’t care too much about talent unless it’s a talent at sports or a talent at sticking it to other people.
I don't disagree.. I try to ignore what "the world" cares or doesn't care about, focus on trying to make other people/animal's etc lives easier/better than before I found them. Sometimes succeed, often fail, but goal remains simple and the same. "the world" can be cruel and bitter, but doesn't mean you need to play along. The amount of people that see hoarding wealth (aka greed) as a measure of success (aka good person/life/someone to look up to), is a massive source of the problem IMO as it is nearly always achieved by making other people/animal's etc lives harder/worse. The sooner more and more people look at greed with disdain rather than admiration, the less cruel and bitter "the world" will be IMO. :spock-hand:
So talent to you means amount of money you get?