[mattbrewsbytes]

If you consider web based SaaS companies then I don't think AI is a reason for collapse, for two major reasons:

1. AI popularity surge is happening at the same time as interest rates going up by a lot. Interest rates impacts borrowing and funding for companies, in many ways money is tighter and cash-flow is more important so borrowed funds with multi-year ROI is not a good idea. These (AI and interest rates) are completely unrelated so correlation (layoffs and software jobs contraction) doesn't mean causation (AI being a cause == not likely, interest rates == maybe, too much hiring during pandemic == more likely). A good question to ask is how many companies have replaced software devs with AI.

2. If you're a SaaS company your core product is software, are you going to let an AI service generate your core product or even submit pieces of your source code to it and feel 100% safe that your code won't be leaked out to other AI users? We can't get humans to document requirements for a feature in a way that can be reliably used to create software, I doubt using AI to generate software is going to work out well. With a SaaS you're betting your entire business on it.

3. Minor nitpick here - the comment is by a game developer. There's a yt video out there of a game developer having ChatGPT write a game. If anything I would think a collapse would happen more so in entertainment industries (as is already with Screen Writers Guild right?) because those are shorter project time-frames with tighter feedback loops to see if its profitable to use AI (and hollywood/game devs re-hash old ideas a lot anyhow but I digress.)