So then the argument isn't so much that skill decay isn't an issue but rather that the skill is inherently worthless moving forward. I'm not sure I agree, but I also got a compsci education because I have loved doing it since childhood rather than because I just wanted to make money, and I can see how the latter group would vehemently disagree with me.
Probably about as comfortable as I would be if I also didn't have my laptop and instead had to sketch out the codebase in a notebook. There's no sense preparing for a scenario where AI isn't available - local models are progressing so quickly that some kind of AI is always going to be available.