Yes, the ruling elite are typically outnumbered by the masses. It matters little: by historical standards, the ruling powers have virtually always leveraged their power to exploit those who don't have power. No reason to assume that streak will end.

Don't "overt" and "visible" mean the same thing in this context?

I expect that motivates exactly zero percent of the criticism that Musk gets.

Maybe. Another possibility is a feeling of opposition to the idea that the world's richest person continue to accumulate wealth, while using said wealth to dishonestly manipulate elections, support openly fascist and bigoted political parties, and, most recently, tip the scales of international conflict (by limiting Starlink use by Ukraine).

You might love his products, but Elon Musk should not have more power. That's a statement not based in envy, but in a revulsion for what he spends that money on, and how it impacts innocent people.

Dentists are doctors.

> From goods and services they provide to others - now at lower cost.

So why don't they do that today? Why don't today's poor people have access to a wide selection of good and services that they exchange with other poor people?

> It will also create a lot of new jobs.

Specifically, what new jobs will be created? That is, what jobs will be needed that an AI can't do cheaper than a human?

Who is "we"? Every labor-providing human on the planet? When that many people are economically disenfranchised and you call them "entitled", the problem is you.

> thinking we are special.

Again, it's not clear who you are talking about. Who thought they are special? Human beings who exchange their labor for money, i.e. have a job? I think I've made clear that programmers are not the end of this trend so to the extent your comment focuses on programmers, it is misguided.

> My point of view is very far from tough luck.

In that case, I don't understand your view at all, because it sure sounds like you are blaming the victim here.

At the risk of repeating myself: who is going to buy it, when wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the capital-owning elite? If human labor can't compete with AI, what value can a person exchange in the free market for goods?

> This didn't happen with previous technological revolutions,

Yes, it did [1]. Maybe you should study some history before leaping to conclusions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)

Yes, I agree, programmers got lucky, and that luck is coming to an end. This has happened to many professions in the past. It's not new.

What is new is two things:

* that it's not just programmers that will be displaced, although we are among the first. Many people, possibly all of them, will have their labor value diminished by AI. This is a systemic issue that requires a systemic solution, not just a pep talk and "Get tough, buttercup,"

* that the success of AI is built on illegitimate grounds, as the training data is built by the people it's displacing; and is serving to enrich a fantastically small number of capital holders, at the expensive of literally everyone else.

So in view of that, I think it's silly and beside the point to say "Hey, tough luck" or to accuse programmers of being entitled, which is certainly the subtext in your comment. Programmers should be upset, but so should everyone else.

A highly dubious assertion. If demand for software is infinite, why don't we have infinite software, since we now have the ability to create infinite software?

> Without checking the code you can't know if it's good enough or not.

And even after checking the code, you still won't know if it's good enough, as evidenced by the large number of bugs that get shipped. I think it's clear that AI can do at least a good job checking code as humans can, so my argument stands.

> good enough isn't good enough

It seems like you are playing word games instead of addressing my argument. Can you please explain the point you were trying to make with this argument?

Where will they get those resources for themselves? From the job that they don't have anymore, because of AI?

There is no reason to assume that the AI employment catastrophe will end with coders.

Even if they have resources, what makes you think they get to hoard them? Instead of paying programmers, they'll pay the owners of data centers.

That's ridiculous and myopic. Technology have improved many people's lives for a long time. Or would you prefer to stop wearing industrially-manufactured clothes, stop taking scientifically-developed vaccines, and of course stop using the device that you are reading this on now?

The difference is that in the past, technological development victimized only subsets of the work force. Mechanical looms were bad for textile workers, but good for everyone else. Personal computers were bad for "human calculators," but good for everyone else. The people who lost their jobs to technology could, theoretically, retrain and get another job.

But now we're facing technology that is theoretically capable of doing any job, at a price that's cheaper than any human. If you lose your job as a programmer due to AI, you can't just retrain as a lawyer, because those jobs are gone too (or will be soon). You can't just become a barista or a cab driver, those jobs are gone too.

Sniping at fellow working-class members is counterproductive. Ultimately, this is a test of democracy: can our government be forced to serve the people who it represents, or only corporate interests? If the latter, then we're entering a period of neo-feudelism.

It will be very hard to pay for $200/mo Claude accounts when everyone's job is gone.

> It will be a better world overall for most.

I strongly disagree. AI is coming for programmers' jobs first, but programmers won't be the last victim. Ultimately, any job is in danger. The only way to be safe is to be willing to do the job cheaper than a machine that never sleeps. That's basically an impossible bar to maintain, especially as AI and robotics get better.

Seeing the technorati "elite" as the enemy is a mistake, because ultimately programmers, rubbish collectors, and waitresses are all just "labor." Tech bros were momentarily lucky and enjoyed a level of privilege, but the real enemy is the ownership class: the people who aren't at risk of losing their job because they own the data centers. If you want a fair society and equal distribution of benefits, stop the capitalist class from poisoning democracy.

Rather than encouraging people to accept the misery inflicted on them by a handful of billionaires, why don't you acknowledge the injustice that AI magnifies the gap between capital and labor, and encourage people to fight (through democratic means) for a more just society, i.e. one that distributes the benefits of labor-saving devices among everyone, not just to a tiny fraction at the top.