How much of your artistry do you think are in those products, is one of the question I would ask. Is this "strap a gopro to your chest while you run around the shop" or "mount a camera at your big machine with tool changer that is spraying coolant everywhere anyway". Are the tool paths something you hand craft, or take a generated path and tune it to your machine?
I lean towards "get that bag cause whatever AI startup this is is gonna fail anyway" they probably don't understand where the complexity in machining lies, since manual -> cnc did most of the automation already.
And definitely get paid up front