> What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could).

How do you figure? 20 dollars/month is insanely cheap for what OpenAI/Anthropic/Google offer. That absolutely qualifies as "empowering a common person". It lowers barriers!

A lot of the anti-AI sentiment on HN concerns people losing their jobs. I don't think this will happen: programmers who know what they're doing are going to be way, way more effective at using AIs to generate code than others.

But even if it is true and we do see job losses in tech: are software devs really "in a precarious position"? Do they really qualify as "those that have little"? Seems like a fantasy to me. Computer programmers have done great over the past 30 years.

More broadly, anti-AI sentiment comes from people who dislike change. It's hard to argue someone out of that position. You're allowed to prefer stasis. But the world moves on and I think it's best to remain optimistic, keep an open mind, and make the most of it.

It's also, for example, the studies finding that when companies adopt AI employees' jobs get worse. More multitasking, more overtime, more burnout, more skills you're expected to learn (on your own time if necessary), more interpersonal conflict among colleagues. And this is not being offset by anything tangible like an increase in pay.

$20/month in return for measurable reductions in quality of life is not an amazing deal. It's "Heads I win, tails you lose."

Or maybe, if you're thinking of it as an enabler for a side hustle or some other project with a low probability of a high payoff, it can slightly more optimistically be regarded as a moderately expensive lottery ticket.

That's not pessimism; it's just a realistic understanding of how the tech industry actually works, informed by decades' worth of experience.

> I don't think this will happen

Block just laid off 40% of their company citing AI.