An important point is missing, and the headline is misleading: The flagship models are unaffordable.

More energy efficient models with (even) less accurate results are a fraction of wage costs. So they would be very affordable to give an existing worker an extra tool. Just no reason for widespread use as long as the "subsidised" ones are available well under cost.

Whether this extra tool does more harm or more good is a different question; due to the hype of using it everywhere for everything, the former is often true.

I'm sure that, in theory, are careful and considerate use can be helpful. For example, as a coding agent, when I give it a simple task like I would a junior dev, and I'd check everything anyway. Things like adding a field to a form and applying it to UI, middleware, database, automated tests first etc.