Internships are these, and are getting longer. I'm also thinking this is what will stop the transfer of roles to another part of the world.

Of course using AI is a skill. But the effort needed to get there is becoming lower and lower.

Well not exactly. An internship is a temporary position, which people mostly just take to improve a CV at an early career stage, or as a fallback after being laid off. A "minimum wage job" is... A job.

Internships at my employer pay 6 figures. I've never seen a minimum wage SWE internship.

Hell I had an internship in 1995 and they paid $10 an hour then and provided housing.

For context, my take home was $650 every two weeks - my total quarterly tuition at school and the next year the cost to rent a one bedroom in the northern burbs of Atlanta.