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.