Comment by antifa
5 days ago
> You could say the same thing about tulip bulbs or any other famous bubble. Lots of smart people with no stake get sucked in.
While I agree with the skepticism, what specifically is the stake here? Most code assists have usable plans in the $10-$20 range. The investors are apparently taking a much bigger risk than the consumer would be in a case like this.
Aside from the horror stories about people spending $100 in one day of API tokens for at best meh results, of course.
The stakes of changing the way so many people work can't be seen in a short term. Could be good or bad. Probably it will be both, in different ways. Margarine instead of butter seemed like a good idea until we noticed that hydrogenation was worse (in some ways) than the cholesterol problem we were trying to fight.
AI company execs also pretty clearly have a politico-economic idea that they are advancing. The tools may stand on their own but what is the broader effect of supporting them?
The stake they and I were referring to is a financial interest in the success of AI. Related is the reputational impact, of course. A lot of people who may not make money do like being seen as smart and cutting edge.
But even if we look at your notion of stake, you're missing huge chunks of it. Code bases are extremely expensive assets, and programmers are extremely expensive resources. $10 a month is nothing compared to the costs of a major cleanup or rewrite.