Saying SEO is alive and well as long as there are search engines is like saying bank robbery is alive as long as there are banks. Okay, but now if you decide to do a bank robbery good luck with that, cameras everywhere, DNA testing, countless other stuff, you're getting caught. Same with SEO, yeah there are search engines, but algos are getting more and more complex and computers processing them more and more powerful.
If I showed you the backlinks and content of a site you don't even have to be an advanced SEO guy you can tell in a minute whether the site is quality and the links were created just to push it up in the SE. If you can, computers are/will be abel to as well.
Now, if by SEO you mean create a site people naturally share and link to + optimize the on-page so that search engines can better understand the keyword the site should appear for, plus get the proper exposure so that people can link to it that's all well and good, but we all know most people who ask if seo is alive don't mean that.
Selling SEO services, well that would be alive and kicking for much longer than SEO is, just like weight loss supplements are selling, even though everyone knows they won't give you the results you want. Most of the money in SEO is probably made by people selling services.
