Yes, the gamification is why some people like it. It is another addiction. Most proponents and bloggers are tied to "AI" money though, directly or indirectly.

I've seen little organic praise from high profile programmers. There aren't many, and once you search they all at least work on a commercial "AI" application.

Simon Willison[1] of Django Framework founder[2] fame is a pretty big AI programming proponent at his blog. He's pretty high profile, as far as real-world programmers (as in, not executives and not promoters) go.

You could argue, he makes money off of AI with his newsletter and whatnot, so he does stand to gain something, but it's a lot less than the executives and investors who've filled the news.

[1] https://simonwillison.net/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_(web_framework)