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The year is 2026. The unemployment rate just printed 4.28%, AI capex is 2% of GDP (650bn), AI adjacent commodities are up 65% since Jan-23 and approximately 2,800 data centers are planned for construction in the US*. In spite of the current displacement narrative – job postings for software engineers are rising rapidly, up 11% YoY.
Despite the macroeconomic community struggling to forecast 2-month-forward payroll growth with any reliable accuracy, the forward path of labor destruction can apparently be inferred with significant certainty from a hypothetical scenario posted on Substack: The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis.
We wrote last week that we see the near-term dynamics around the AI capex story as inflationary, but given markets are focused on the forward narrative, we outline a more constructive take on the end state below. Before that, however, it’s worth reflecting that the imminent disintermediation narrative rests on the speed of diffusion.
Job Postings For Software Engineers Are Rapidly Rising
Search with AI semantics or keywords, browse by category, sort by popularity. All skills use the open SKILL.md standard and are ready to install
Popular markets commentator Citrini7 recently published a compelling and popular piece of AI doomer fiction, admittedly with some small probability of occurring. But I am old enough to have seen many cycles of economic doomsaying. I want to present a critique of Citrini's work and show a much likelier, more positive view of the future.
A light-weight and powerful meta-prompting, context engineering and spec-driven development system for Claude Code and OpenCode
A new perspective on development for the agentic era. Gemini-generated documentation, always up-to-date.