This is an outstanding phenomenon, not dystopian. Your friend was going to have to do the incredibly awful and wasteful task of rebuilding an incredibly complicated system.
However, fortunately, a much more optimal solution happened, where somebody build a superior and cheap solution (unfortunately not open yet) and let the whole world leverage it. Now your friend needs to waste very little energy deduplicating, and presumably has free time and energy to think about other problems that aren't solved.
Indeed, a much more optimal way to do things has been found. But that's not what this is about. It's about the human experience. AI is creating value, but the day to day life for a problem solver has become a bit more mundane.
However, fortunately, a much more optimal solution happened, where somebody build a superior and cheap solution (unfortunately not open yet) and let the whole world leverage it. Now your friend needs to waste very little energy deduplicating, and presumably has free time and energy to think about other problems that aren't solved.