Comment by verbify

> Why would I pay $10-20K/mo to employ a software engineer and then balk at a $500, $1000, or even $2000 monthly AI bill, assuming they were even vaguely trying to use the tokens productively?

Spending $10k and then balking at an additional $2k can make sense to me based on the circumstances. It's an additional 20% that hasn't been budgeted for.

The question is partly about what that 20% gives the employer - for some businesses, you might see diminishing returns from additional productivity of a software developer. E.g. I did some work creating BI reports and warehousing for a manufacturing company. Being more productive just meant faster reports or more reports. But faster/more reports didn't necessarily equate to more money for the business.

Sometimes it's a question of a business being penny wise and pound foolish, but sometimes it does make sense to me to not spend this additional money.