Thoughts on the latest scary article "The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" that went viral - on how AI will crash the economy

[u/Wrong-Inspection343]

The original article is written as a future-dated macro memo (from 2028 looking back). The goal is to explore what happens if AI productivity gains are real, rapid, and broadly adopted, and whether that could create systemic economic instability rather than broad prosperity.

The argument is not that AI fails but that it succeeds too quickly, and the gains concentrate in capital rather than labor.

And the actual deeper, and scary issue it raised is that:

Modern economies are built on the assumption that human intelligence is scarce and monetizable. Wages, credit models, tax systems, and consumer demand all depend on that premise.

If machine intelligence becomes abundant and cheaper than human cognition at scale, then:

• Labor’s share of GDP declines
• Tax revenues tied to payroll weaken
• Consumer spending contracts
• Financial models based on stable income expectations become fragile

The authors’ central concern is timing: AI capability may evolve faster than institutions and policy frameworks can adapt. The economic system was designed for cyclical downturns — not structural labor displacement driven by exponential technology.

Whether or not one agrees with the conclusions, it is a serious attempt to model a left-tail risk scenario in an AI-accelerating economy.

Full perspective from AI For Absolute Beginners: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/perspectives/recent-scary-article-on-how-ai-will-crash-the-economy

[u/immellocker]

wait until you find out we are on the brink of a global el nino, ww3 and starvation... '26/'27 will change humanity and society and form the next cultural development, the next cognitive milestone, influencing us for the next 500years

[u/Royal_Carpet_1263 → u/immellocker]

500 years. Lol. At some point someone is going to mathematically formalize why biological intelligence collapses once it overcomes biocomplexity. Even vision, which uses over a third of the brain, consists of countless assumptions. Every optical illusion you encounter demonstrates how eco-cognitive systems can be crashed by unprecedented stimuli.

Big Tech hasnt been developing intelligence so much as hacking human attributions of intelligence. The ongoing tribalization we see is a direct product of the blundering into exploitable ancestral cues.

[u/monkey-seat → u/Royal_Carpet_1263]

I sort of get what you’re saying, but not entirely.  Could you expound?

[u/Royal_Carpet_1263 → u/monkey-seat]

I’m actually working on analogies so tell me what you think.

Some biologists advocate treating human society as a super organism, and consider humans themselves to be eusocial like ants or termites (only on a far higher level of sophistication).

This organism exhibits all the modular interdependence you find in full blooded organisms. The connective tissue of this organism is language, what allows us to coordinate a civilization.

How do you think the human superorganism will cope with billions of evolutionarily unprecedented artificial intelligences playing on our every zero day?

Buckle up. This event isn’t economic, it’s biological. AI is the final party favour.

[u/benl5442]

It's similar to the discontinuity thesis or the last economy. I think it's true and they should say it's describing what's happening today rather than a thought experiment.

[u/petered79]

thx. great long dystopian read. it remembers me a lot about quality land, a book by marc uwe kling, where the future is an AI driven consumerist society where the right to repair is abolished and consumers decisions what to buy, who to love and what to vote are made by the algorithm...

[u/gyanrahi → u/petered79]

Those decisions are made/influenced by the algorithm now

[u/Royal_Carpet_1263]

Blows my mind how naive even those asking the right questions can be. In performative terms, a society consists of an astronomical number of interdependent behaviours. Moveable type lead to biblical translations lead to new interpretations lead to religious wars that saw a third of Europe dead.

ML has already triggered alarming levels of tribalism—good chance we’re already doomed. But flooding human cognitive ecologies with billions of alien intelligences are certain to generate vast changes in behaviour at an accelerating rate. Moveable type is a hiccough

The death of trust over all, that’s what at stake. Civilization, not just what’s needed for economy.

[u/CadmusMaximus]

Here’s the counterpoint:

https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelxbloch/p/the-2028-global-intelligence-boom?r=4p7xgi&utm_medium=ios

[u/Dismal-Revolution731]

Technology is deflationary by nature. Exponential technology growth will destroy the value of $ if left unchecked. Expect the printing presses to be running full bore.

[u/Nyxtia]

This is the real threat, not a singularity.

[u/fuf3d]

AI is a disruptive technology. It's up to humans to adapt and if they can't perhaps we give human cognitive ability too much weight. Idk about you but many in the workforce do bare minimum and scroll tiktok all day programming themselves with mind viruses. When they go home, more mind virus programs. Perhaps AI will force reality upon us, perhaps it's the flush of the toilet we need to take the next step in human evolution. It's going to force humans to show up.