I lost interest in writing elegant code many years before AI. Professional software development doesn't reward it much. Most customers don't care about it. And

I lost interest in writing elegant code many years before AI. Professional software development doesn't reward it much. Most customers don't care about it. And I don't have much emotional attachment to or ego investment in stuff that I make for an employer, so I don't really care if it's elegant or not as long as it puts money in my bank account. I used to have more emotional attachment to and ego investment in stuff I made for employers, but professional software development is pretty good at making one stop caring about that stuff. Probably for good reason, since software development is not actually the most important craft at a tech company. Business is more important.