Will the AI revolution be democratized?

Does AI have to be controlled by tech oligarchs?

The optimism about FOSS as a transition point to a more democratic economy has dimmed, to put it mildly. On the one hand, FOSS is inescapable today. Linux is as pervasive on the internet as microplastics in the ocean. On the other hand, Big Tech is far more powerful and concentrated than it was even a decade ago. The Magnificent Seven make up one-third of the value of the S&P500 (compared to 12.5% in 2016). The advent of generative AI hinted that new entrants like OpenAI and Anthropic might challenge the dominance of incumbents such as Google and Microsoft, but their capital and computing needs are so vast that they have little choice but to collaborate with the old guard. For now, Big Tech has made itself indispensable.

But maybe not forever. Claude Code and its inevitable successors mean that almost anyone can be a coder, speaking software into existence like Captain Picard with his tea. Many who have sampled the wares of advanced vibe coding see it as a Promethean moment, making amazing superpowers readily available to average humans.

When my kids were going to college in the 2010s, I told them, “Study what you want, but if you don’t learn to code, you will die penniless, homeless, and alone.” (This may be why there are no “World’s best dad” coffee mugs in my house.) They ignored me, and now they have their revenge: anyone who can follow a few simple directions can code now, just by chattering about what they want into an AI dictation program and feeding the transcript to Claude. It’s not much more complicated than that.

Imagine a world where every entrepreneur in Detroit could speak into existence customized tools for everything they need. Plumbers, furniture designers, coffee shop owners, graphic artists, accountants, home health co-ops – they can all be coders now, self-reliant and self-employed.

But, of course, they need something like Claude Code, and Claude’s parent company Anthropic…

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