What you say is true, but the amount of "grunt work" is not constant over the years. In fact, I think the amount of "grunt work" in teh tech industry is just growing and not shrinking; I think the following look is quite obvious:
- amount of current grunt work: X
- new tech Z appears that makes X be reduced to 0.1X
- at the same time Z enables new ways of doing things. Some things become grunt work because they are a byproduct of Z
- amount of current grunt work: Y (where Y ~= X)
- ...
If the technological progress had stopped in the 2000s, then all the grunt work (originated in the 90s) would be esentially zero today. New tech just brings automation and grunt work. I don't think we will live in a society where there's practically no grunt work.
The most recent example is AI: there are AI tools that generate sound, images, video and text... but if you want to create a differentiating product/experience, you need to combine (do the grunt work) all the available tools (chatgpt, stable difussion, etc.)
- amount of current grunt work: X
- new tech Z appears that makes X be reduced to 0.1X
- at the same time Z enables new ways of doing things. Some things become grunt work because they are a byproduct of Z
- amount of current grunt work: Y (where Y ~= X)
- ...
If the technological progress had stopped in the 2000s, then all the grunt work (originated in the 90s) would be esentially zero today. New tech just brings automation and grunt work. I don't think we will live in a society where there's practically no grunt work.
The most recent example is AI: there are AI tools that generate sound, images, video and text... but if you want to create a differentiating product/experience, you need to combine (do the grunt work) all the available tools (chatgpt, stable difussion, etc.)