Didn’t they though? I’m sure accounting firms hired way more accountants back in the days of paper records. AI definitely won’t rid society of the developer role, but there will certainly be fewer employment opportunities.
There is already fewer employment opportunities, because big tech firms hired anyone they could and let them sit on unimportant things. At this moment, AI is used mostly as a convenient excuse to "trim the fat". Of course, it's a catastrophe for those fired programmers, but the good ones will find a job or create a new one.