I think if you won't even admit that AI greatly accelerated these trends, you're in some kind of denial. There's no reason to believe that we would see a rapid coordinated decline in all of these things at the same time without AI, and strong reason to believe that we would see it with AI. So we have a model that makes testable predictions, and data strongly consistent with those testable predictions, in the form of an acceleration of existing downward trends. What more do you want?
Hiked interest rates cause a decline in Stackoverflow activity?
My answer doesn't change. Against the background of other phenomena already causing various trends, we see acceleration of those trends consistent with a testable hypothesis about the effects of AI adoption in industry. In most fields of science that's good evidence in favor of the model.
And no I didn't ask AI about it, this is my own opinion and my own perspective.
