People not using AI will 100% get left behind as sure as those refusing to 'cars' or 'computers'.

There is absolutely not doubt; and it will be impossible to avoid as using 'plastic' or 'electricity'.

The narrow challenges of 'AI aided development' or 'AI aided creative work' are legitimate - that part is real and fair, but it'd be an over-statement to contemplate 'not using it'.

The cyclists who keep their muscles strong the 'hard way' ... will win the delivery war vs. cars!?

The carpenter who hammers every nail and saws every plank by hand 'the hard way' ... will win over the guys using power saws and nail guns!?

No - AI is changing the landscape.

What is 'hard and easy' are changing.

We won't need some skills, we will need others.

It maybe harder to maintain some critical skills, but the upside is obvious.

What is fundamentally missing from this treatise is that 'there is always a hard way'.

Personally - I have never been more 'cognitively overloaded' than ever. The AI 'amplifies' the depth of complexity one can reach, it's just at 1/2 a layer of abstraction above the code.

Driving a 'race car' at the highest speeds - is as challenging - and perhaps more so - than riding a horse.

The 'instinct to push back' is fair and there are innumerable legit criticisms ...

... but AI is just a new part of the stack and it will be as horizontally applied as 'software or the transistor' - it's not reasonable to think one could or should avoid it entirely.