They're saying that your contribution is negative. Even if their contribution is zero, zero is still better than negative.
The way I like to think of it:
"Working my ass off as an IC who can't move up the gradient" -> "Principal Investigator, CEO, CTO, CMO, CRO of a 10-person team, captain of creation, actual Iron Man."
I'm putting in more work now, and I'm getting 5x the return on it.
How do you people not get this? Are you not trying?
* Are you being compensated for all those roles you now do?
* If you do 5x does this mean you get more time for yourself or are you now busy 24/7 with more work?
* Extrapolate this all other "5x" IC, now you all are CEO CTO CMO CRO iron man. Now what?
Do you expect everyone else to become 'actual iron man'?
I've been a systems engineer and a hobbyist filmmaker for decades - pretty solid skills in each of these. Now I'm doing web design, marketing, frontend, mobile, writing tools, doing outreach, social media. It is a force multiplier.
I think there are an order of magnitude more people that this enables. You have to be somewhat well-rounded and willing to wear lots of hats, but this is exactly like wearing an exosuit. It's like jumping from IC to CTO or director, but still being an IC with a direct hand in everything. Does that make sense?
Everyone sitting this out on the sidelines is missing out. The opportunity to climb the ladder is the strongest it has ever been. If you have strong skills and drive, this is a performance enhancer better than any other. It's better than the best intern or personal assistant.
edit: hit by the HN commenting rate limit, so I can't respond.
> What happens to everyone else?
I recently met a guy that works at a pizza shop and had his YouTube channel blow up because he's got an AI series. I have lots of anecdotes like this. I don't want to oust the guy, but I personally know another person that got a Netflix deal because he did AI previz. (There might be a magazine article about it, in which case I can link it. I'll look.)
The world is going to be rife with all kinds of new opportunities. Including lots of opportunities for folks that never had access before.
> the ladder you're climbing is made up of other people
So all of the modern electronics, Netflix, DoorDash, etc. etc. of today were piled on the corpses of horse cart drivers and butter churners and Blockbuster employees that ordinarily would have told you your late fees but now have to find a different job? That's a wild take.
Why are we being so performative about this?
What if we look back on writing software in 2010 as stamping punch cards? Why term any of this as walking on people instead of the better lens of everything just gets better - products, jobs, civilization.
It sounds like not only do some people want to coast forever, they want to hold everyone else back. I'm willing to learn new things. I'm tired of the status quo.
I think what you're missing is that AI shows, more directly than most other technologies, the ladder you're climbing is made up of other people. Not everyone wants to get ahead that way.
What happens to everyone else?
I think you're badly missing the point.
It is true that car drivers replaced horse carriage drivers and car mechanics replaced the people who took care of horses and what not.
But in the horse carriage vs car metaphor with AI, people are not the drivers and blacksmiths, people are the horses.
How many horses do you see around lately?
Certainly seems like an apt comparison! Personally I think we should just ban AI if it’s going to primarily facilitate the production of slop-shit like TikTok.
And despite the touts insisting on how useful and amazing these tools are, I have yet to see anything of true value be produced. Slop-shit vomit factories indeed.