This is happening, and the reddit thread is just a single instance of a wide phenomenon. I wonder how one can square "snakeoil" theories against reality like this.
The camera is the best metaphor. In the 19th century, being an artist was a real thing; it was really a technical field. You were a portrait painter and the best artists would study for years to be as accurate to reality as you could - look at how the light moves and all of that. All of a sudden, the camera comes out and artists fear this is the end of art because this new thing can capture reality better than anyone can.
But then very quickly, people realized that in some ways this liberates the artists. It's not a coincidence that the impressionist movement coincided with the advent of the camera. People realized it's not about capturing reality but the expression and feelings conjured. This led to an explosion about what art is and come out of the trap about painting, nobility, and grand scenes into things that really evoke and challenge us.
People are now saying AI can write pretty well. It can code pretty well. It can create movies, images pretty well. What that tells me is that it liberates the creator to move beyond that. Someone can elevate and integrate and manage these tools.
Contrast that to the people on https://old.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion, where people willingly experiment with multiple approaches to media generation. At least some of those people will be interested in 3D modeling and will willingly take OP's job, because they genuinely enjoy it and OP now does not.
In the end, adapt, or others who do will take over. That's been the historical precedent for millennia, and it will not stop now.
Another instance is the 'hey pi' chatbot. For some people it's a superior experience to BetterHelp, or even a lot of so-called professional therapists out there.
The lack of actual human presence is a bit deflating for me, but I still got a good session out of it once. It feels like it has the potential to be at least better than nothing for some of the lonely people out there. The option for different voices is a nice touch that adds to the illusion.
There are so many possibilities. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with everything from NPCs in video games to robotics (among other things, to actually explain what they're doing & why, and converse). Not to mention the applications in education and health care. Anyone who thinks this is a flash in the pan has not observed enough of what's going on.