Developer-replacement Memes

The corporate AI hype cycle in four acts: panic about being replaced, bragging about productivity gains, going full send on AI doing everything, then quietly backing out when the bill arrives. Companies went from "AI will replace all of you" to "AI makes us 10x faster" to "let's fire all the humans" to "wait, this costs HOW much per month?" faster than you can say "token limit exceeded." The clown makeup progression is chef's kiss here. Turns out when AI is writing 100% of your code, you're also debugging 100% of AI hallucinations, paying 100% more for compute, and understanding 0% of what's actually happening in production. Nothing says "revolutionary technology" like canceling it because your CFO saw the invoice.