Hello,I would like to ask you a question: What do you think is a user experience designer, a job that will last for many decades? How do you justify the answer?
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Bear in mind that although UX is something of a buzzword at the moment, the concept of a User Experience Architect has been around since 1993 when Don Norman suggested it as his job title during his employment at Apple. In 1986, Brenda Laurel was writing about the concept of user experience as early as 1986. Other historical examples of UX can be found. Jakob Nielsen has written an interesting piece about the history of UX going back to 1950. Some would argue that conveyor belt was an older form of UX design, and also for Feng Shui, which goes back 3,000 years, is perhaps the earliest form of physical UX design.
To put it mildly, UX is by no means a new position or concept - simply one that is getting more attention as companies begin to recognize and fully embrace the value experience design.
That said, in what some think of as the modern computing era (post-widespread-internet-adoption), the skills of UX designers have been spread among a wide variety of roles. Graphic Designer, Product Designer, Interaction Designer, User Researcher, Information Architect, Content Strategist, Copywriter, etc., have all held sway over different aspects of experience design. Many of these roles still exist, but answer now to a UX designer providing guidance and oversight across the groups.
As far as the future or UX design is concerned, the basic concept of embracing a user’s overall satisfaction with every aspect of their interaction with a company, product, or service will stand the test of time for two reasons: Humans seek validation and feel value where they are validated; and the people who design products and services are not the people that use them. While certain best practices may become automated, humans and their cultural attitudes and norms are forever fluid, shifting miraculously with small changes in time and distance. Study of and advocacy for the user will be a lasting legacy of the profession that will separate the elite brands from the average.
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Absolutely – but the nature of the work may change.
Digital experiences will change, product experiences will change, whatever-comes-next experiences will change, but they will all still exist and they will still require designing.
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Actually UX has been around much longer:
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Last time I looked, 1430 AD was not longer go than 1000 BC 
Also, that Da Vinci story is reeeeealy stretching the definition of UX to its breaking point. I personally wouldn’t count it as an example of UX design, but I could see how others might.
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