Fantastic thread. As a game engine programmer I've gotten a lot of satisfaction designing and executing all aspects of coding. But I have always stood on the shoulders of giants: former lead engine devs at EA and Sony and BBN and countless articles from GDC and Siggraph. The language and platform creators themselves. My innovations live on top of theirs. I don't know if I'd have attained that same feeling starting with AI, but I know AI hasn't replaced the need for good architecture or novel algorithms yet. And it's still bad at breaking down and testing implementations. I use it for all it's good at and try to stay away from what it's not. My recent job satisfaction comes from that combination, to deliver a system in 10 months that should have taken a couple years.