It is not the same comparison. CAD produces exact same drawings as handwritten ones. It purely makes engineers more effective. It just took the menial side of the work. You still had to care about every single detail and tolerance. You still followed the same way of manufacturing things. You still do the smallest parts of it. Just like word processing vs handwriting a book / letter. You still have to type every single letter. You still think every sentence.

AI is the complete opposite. It takes away the thinking part. When people use AI, they tend to offload a lot of thinking part to it as well. I use it because company policy. But if you care about every single if case and every single variable name, writing by hand is faster unlike CAD.

History repeats itself. Now it’s the moment of weaving machines. AI is the new weaving machine. It needs couple guys for the maintenance. The other 198 guys were freed from the hard work. It’s not the CAD moment.

Before the industrial revolution weavers worked from home in a relatively peaceful environment, set their own hours, and made a respectable living.

After the industrial revolution they worked 14 hour days in a thunderously loud textile mill, so full of airborne lint that you could hardly see. The pace of their work was set by machine, which frequently caused serious injuries, and their wages often weren't enough to live on.

At the time of Munich Olympics German workers did occasionally electronics assembly at home. Or some electromechanical components like switches, relays, cabling, you name it. Pay per piece, not hourly rate. Simple hardware in today’s terms with generous pay. Later it was automated and today completely outsourced. Cycle seen in so many industries.

I can repeat myself: history repeats often enough.

You'll be surprised to learn that the opposite is true today (as of 2015 when I last worked in a licensed engineer capacity). CAD has near eliminated draftsmen, similar to how automated testing has eliminated QA. Engineers are performing all of analysis, design and drafting today. Similar to how programmers are responsible for testing.