> AI also forces folks to be online to code
This isn't true in the broad sense you've used. It's true that most people don't have the hardware to run the bleeding-edge foundation models, but with a modest Macbook you can run very capable local models now (at least capable for coding, where my experience is).
Here I was talking of the AI vendors - they specifically provide inferior models for local usage while offering the "insanely" good models only online.
AI can be run locally but with the growth of agent factories, this is going to be less and less possible if you want to keep up with the Jones.