> Virtually all roles I hear about or see are senior too...
This is the general trend of things. Experienced workers displace younger workers because they are more productive and cost the company less in training.
Overall the number of jobs available causes this displacement, the experienced workers would prefer to be paid for their experience but haven't found jobs and so compromise. You always have companies hanging out a hiring sign even if there is no real active position available.
There's a book about it called 'The Pinch'. We'll have some real societal trouble once the experienced people start passing. This is two generations in the making. Generally speaking no one wanted to have a discussion about it when it could have mattered. Things are so integrated now; you'll basically have a generational die off of knowledge.
As for the AI hype train, its largely not hype anymore. If by hype you mean doomsday talk, that's actually quite accurate. There's a good overview video done on youtube that does justice to what it can or can't do, and the issues that need to be discussed as opposed to the hyperbole and propaganda flowing about.
The main point being, the advances are happening so quickly now that we can no longer react to any potential problems. Any engineer will say that is a bad situation to be in; a runaway train being appropriate metaphor.
