I'm a web developer to myself who has done zero game or systems programming so I can't speak to that side of it, but you reminded me of it!
You should probably understand Thomas' comment in part as a reaction to Zitron attacking Thomas in a pretty low-brow fashion, essentially for saying "hey folks, AI coding works and you should be using it":
https://www.wheresyoured.at/how-to-argue-with-an-ai-booster/
The bottom line is that Ed Zitron, like Gary Marcus, built their entire brand on being AI contrarians; they can't say anything positive about it without qualifying it with a more damning negative. There's nothing wrong about having voices like that, but it makes them unreliable narrators. I am apprehensive about AI and its externalities, but I don't want to be caught citing either of them for that reason.
Sure, but an ad hominem is still an ad hominem regardless of one's personal feelings (it took me a good minute to figure out who "Thomas" is).
Otherwise, I agree, and I try not to cite extremists or bullies on either side. I don't even really care that much about defending Zitron, but I do put him on in the background because he does so many podcasts as I find it soothing to listen to someone rant and rave against the tech bro overlords, even if some of the shit he says annoys me. But he does show his work sometimes and wanted to point that out.
My argument here is just that Zitron says things that are wrong all the time.
You could fairly rebut me by saying I didn't substantiate that argument. That's true! That doesn't make the argument fallacious; it just means it isn't facially dispositive.
And I agree that he says things that are wrong much of the time, but not all the time. I also don't like him enough to care, but I do care enough to bring it up when I see multiple random attacks.