Old geezer here. Started programming in the early 1980s, did it professionally for ~20 years, then transitioned into what today would be called SRE and cyber security, worked in it for ~20 years more, then retired -- and today, I do my own coding, SREing and cyber securing as a kind of hobby.
I feel your pain -- there's no doubt the current crop of LLMs is better than me in all these domains. I would be in real trouble, both in terms of gainful employment and identity, if I still depended for these just on my own personal skills.
In terms of gainful employment, I can't really help you -- but becoming a niche domain expert like other posters suggested sounds good. Also, for those things I do, me+AI is still significantly better than AI alone, so what I seem to be slowly turning into is a kind of 'manager-centaur/shepherd' where I define the problem/goal and then ride close herd on top of the AI to help guide it and correct its mistakes and sub-optimal decisions. But as you noticed, with the constant model evolution this is becoming unnecessary, and like niche domain expertise, I don't think will last long. What I would try and do if I was in your situation today, is to try and become financially secure as quickly as possible. But I'm not sure that it would be possible, at least in my case.
Re: identity, what I did starting about 10 years before I retired, was to change areas. In my case it was not for gainful employ since I was already financially secure, but to keep myself intellectually active and motivated. For me the new area was philosophy (yes, really, and I'm so glad I did) and kind of fits with the AI era since the ever-growing problems of AI consciousness and how to integrate it with society are well handled by it (Philosophy of Mind and Philosophical Ethics/Politics, respectively). Philosophically, it's a wonderful time to be alive.
I apologize if I can't offer you any real, ready-to-deploy solutions, but I hope my report can at least help illuminate and inspire you on finding your own path. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.
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Old geezer here. Started programming in the early 1980s, did it professionally for ~20 years, then transitioned into what today would be called SRE and cyber security, worked in it for ~20 years more, then retired -- and today, I do my own coding, SREing and cyber securing as a kind of hobby.
I feel your pain -- there's no doubt the current crop of LLMs is better than me in all these domains. I would be in real trouble, both in terms of gainful employment and identity, if I still depended for these just on my own personal skills.
In terms of gainful employment, I can't really help you -- but becoming a niche domain expert like other posters suggested sounds good. Also, for those things I do, me+AI is still significantly better than AI alone, so what I seem to be slowly turning into is a kind of 'manager-centaur/shepherd' where I define the problem/goal and then ride close herd on top of the AI to help guide it and correct its mistakes and sub-optimal decisions. But as you noticed, with the constant model evolution this is becoming unnecessary, and like niche domain expertise, I don't think will last long. What I would try and do if I was in your situation today, is to try and become financially secure as quickly as possible. But I'm not sure that it would be possible, at least in my case.
Re: identity, what I did starting about 10 years before I retired, was to change areas. In my case it was not for gainful employ since I was already financially secure, but to keep myself intellectually active and motivated. For me the new area was philosophy (yes, really, and I'm so glad I did) and kind of fits with the AI era since the ever-growing problems of AI consciousness and how to integrate it with society are well handled by it (Philosophy of Mind and Philosophical Ethics/Politics, respectively). Philosophically, it's a wonderful time to be alive.
I apologize if I can't offer you any real, ready-to-deploy solutions, but I hope my report can at least help illuminate and inspire you on finding your own path. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.