reading tech news left me so confused. all these people around me were letting the language models spit out crap code. they gave up on what i thought was the most interesting part of the job
I think I see the source of your confusion: you're assuming that everybody has the same attitude towards things that you do.
I find that LLMs remove all the most boring parts of the job.
Actually, the US is an extreme example in the negative direction when it comes to global attitudes toward AI. Most countries are much more excited about AI than the US is.