A less bombastic quote from the cited Doctorow: " AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations". I am a big fan of Cory, but as a developer I tend to think that AI will continue to aid us in refining what we shovel as well as what was once already shoveled -- refining it from a carcinogen into a benign and load-bearing :D foundation. The metaphor is catchy, but may not be apt, unless somehow we unilaterally decide that use of AI itself is the cancer and we all act to eliminate it. I think a dismal fate for OpenAI and Anthropic is likely quite separate from the fate of AI itself, particularly for software development.

I think if you look at how AI is being used anywhere outside of computer science the quote makes a bit more sense.

AI is being used to dehumanize people's jobs, provide bad customer service, a bunch of people are being fired for dubious benefit, people are being turned into accountability sinks (the AI is in charge of decisions, but the human takes the blame).

Doctorow is also funnier than Zitron.