Does AI Distribute or Concentrate Power?

Ryo Lu says AI both levels the playing field and raises the ceiling at the same time. Soleio had asked which way the power moves: an older hope that technology would push power out to the edges, or a new concentration where a 10x engineer becomes 1,000x more productive, often with Cursor. Ryo Lu does not pick one side.

Before these tools, doing anything meant learning the programming concepts, the syntax, and how to run the server. Now anyone with an idea can start. The first output can be a little sloppy, purple gradients, and more iteration brings it closer to what that person wanted. Telling an agent the exact thing still takes knowing the language, the concepts, and sometimes reading the code and the diffs. Playing around, it is fine not to look. When the software is used by millions and the work is critical, looking is required. Better agents help with that, and more people level up.

People who have done this for years should work in flow, pull out their strengths, and multiply that by 10 or 100 together with specialists in other domains. Ryo Lu has noticed that some vibe coders handle agents better than manual coders who have not caught up, because the fluency comes from building with the tools.