Why do some say that AI will replace the software engineers, while others say that demand will increase? Why this contradiction?

Recently, I overheard two engineers debating over this…
One said, “AI is going to take our jobs. Why would anyone hire us when ChatGPT can write code in seconds?”
And the other laughed and said, “No, AI is going to make us even more valuable. Companies will need more engineers, not less.”

Both walked away convinced they were right.
And that’s the contradiction you’re asking about.

Honestly, they’re both right, but they’re talking about two different things.

When people say AI will replace engineers, they’re really talking about tasks. Debugging, boilerplate code, routine fixes, AI is already faster at these.