This is a cynical view of the world. Maybe the people "on top" simply want to improve their company's efficiency in order to return value to investors, etc. My point being its economics, not some evil intent.

Software engineers need to recognize this common threat and organize (labor) sooner than later

And the point of that would be what? To protect our jobs by demanding that industry ignore and no longer pursue innovation? That seems like heresy for anyone in Tech.

If the day does come that AI starts writing code, the lost of our fat salaries and stock options will likely be the least of our problems; or perhaps the world will be void of problems altogether.