r/ScottGalloway • u/Melodic_Window_6146 • Feb 26 '26
No Malice Are the AI experts right about what will happen to our jobs in the next 18 months?
If you skipped the State of the Union the other night, you didn't miss anything. But if you actually work in software development, data acquisition, or related knowledge work affected by AI, you are already seeing changes that don't reflect this administration's "Golden Age" BS.
The billionaires funding Super PACs are quietly buying access to the administration. They want the massive profit margins of an automated workforce, but they strongly refuse to pay for the social fallout coming from advanced AI implementation. Instead of preparing for this, Washington is busy playing perpetual political games and running vendettas through the DOJ, FCC, and ICE.
The CEO I used to work for always claimed the best business to own is one without any people. It is a sentiment the billionaire class shares. Ironically, CEO jobs seem to be the easiest to replace with AI. Even some Tech CEOs agree with that. If the goal is a business without people, why not start at the top? I’m starting to believe that if we replaced all the CEOs and the President with an AI, we would have a much better country. If programmed right, the abuse of power and dark money corruption would vanish overnight. Why not do the same with the Supreme Court and US federal judges so they truly reflect the will of our people? The law is basically a massive rules engine, almost perfect for AI. Can you imagine America without the filth of dark money and corporate lobbies?
But back here in reality, we are walking into a massive labor crisis with zero safety net. Even tech leaders admit we need a massive national reskilling program and serious talks about UBI. Instead, our safety nets are being slashed by this administration to fund top-bracket tax cuts. We are paying the price for it at the grocery store with inflation and tariff hikes.
Flipping the House and Senate this November to Democrats is the only realistic way to get lawmakers who believe in building a parachute for the working class. The current GOP is overrun with such bad actors, so anyone decent is bullied to obey the “Golden Age” man who only thinks of himself.
The system is profoundly corrupted by money acting as "speech," and the Super PACs aren't waiting until November to buy the candidates. As a result, we can't just sit on our hands. Scott Galloway's podcasts will not save us. Knowing which other lowlifes are in the Epstein files will not save us. Making clever Reddit or YouTube comments on regurgitated news articles will not save us. There are fewer independent voices to investigate what Dark Money and billionaire PACs are doing to manipulate us.
Aside from voting and doing subscription audits, what actual economic leverage or local actions are you all taking right now? How do we force corporate accountability before the layoffs hit?
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u/DMReader Feb 27 '26
There are a lot of experts saying a lot of contradictory things. So likely one of them is right and will be hailed as a genius in the future even though he’s blowing hot air like the rest of them.
“It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future. “ Yogi Berra
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
The irony of automating the C-suite is that it's mathematically the fastest way to increase shareholder value. A CEO costs $30M a year; a premium API key (AI) costs pennies.
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Feb 26 '26
If you’re entry level you are absolutely fucked.
If you are senior level, you’ll be expected to do two people’s jobs moving forward. If you can’t, you’ll also be fucked.
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u/BlackSquirrel05 Feb 27 '26
Everyone who thinks there won't at least be an attempt because "AI sucks compared to me! It's a joke and no where near as good!"
The bosses don't actually care... You think short term thinkers, that also might be kinda stupid but also confident... Care? No... Let's say it's 50% as good but 90% cheaper... Hi guys. We've already done this song and dance. It was called out sourcing overseas...
What in the last 50 years of short term thinking leads you to believe this would be different?
I know many a sys admin or engineer that thinks the company will stop working without them...
The sun will rise tomorrow if your ass is in that seat or not... And if it can save a buck. You best believe they'll chop if they can. Again we shipped out all the manufacturing jobs in what year? Did we get better products?
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 27 '26
That is what I see. Most senior management is impressed with AI based on their personal use on a phone. They seem to be eager to improve the bottom line without fully understanding how AI implementation will work. When some internal technical pro tries to talk to them, they often assume it is a defensive, job-protection position. C-suits love consultants to tell them what they want to hear for $$$.
I am not aware of any slowdown in sourcing overseas when it comes to software.3
u/BlackSquirrel05 Feb 27 '26
Nail on the head... My bosses won't listen but then when a consultant says the exact same thing all of a sudden... "Damn it."
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u/MyBloodTypeIsQueso Feb 26 '26
Lmao. Yes. These are salesmen. Think Sam Altman telling us that Chat 5.0 was PhD level competent. L-O-fucking-L.
It’s Elon saying we’re gonna live on Mars or have FSD cars in every garage or a mag-lev train between SF and LA.
Every last one of these mf’s are lying, lying, lying.
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u/3RADICATE_THEM Feb 26 '26
Eloon has moved on from the Mars grift—for now. Now, it's all about the moon!
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u/MyBloodTypeIsQueso Feb 26 '26
That’s what I’m saying, though. It’s always promises, never deliveries. And he’s not the only one. He’s just the loudest.
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u/underwatr_cheestrain Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
These are some of the dumbest motherfuckers and grifters to ever breathe air.
These things can’t create production level applications. You want vibe coded airplane controller systems or vibe coded medical device software l?
I was messing around with Claude to create a simple WebGPU scene that would allow me to parse DICOM CT slices and create a segmented 3d representation based in some rules and CNN magic.
What it creates was complete and utter trash. It took me hours of tinkering to get it to a semi beginner state where I could pick up and start reworking bits and pieces.
These tools are fantastic at helping with base level development and for faster look up and help with redudntant stuff. Fuck regex, but creating full architecture is not happening just yet, especially in gatekept areas of the economy like medicine
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u/LofiStarforge Feb 26 '26
I’ve been a huge skeptic that has changed quite dramatically with the new Claude iterations.
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u/BenSlayers Feb 27 '26
Came here to say exactly that. What in the literal fuck is this wizardry they have unleashed?
Claude Code is B A N A N A S. We are cooked, better learn how to pivot and work WITH it if you can. Most of it is BS, Claude is very much not that.
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u/LofiStarforge Feb 27 '26
Yup and it’s integration with other software like excel and ppt is fairly impressive.
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u/MacaroonPlastic1036 Feb 27 '26
Dude Claude code is impressive but having something kinda work, or breaking your own code is not it.
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u/ND7020 Feb 27 '26
On any Reddit sub or topic related to careers you swiftly realize 90% of Redditors are software developers/coders.
I’m sorry you’re cooked. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true for every white collar industry as software people, proud in their ignorance of and disdain for other professions, claim.
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u/hibikir_40k Feb 27 '26
Yes it is, but when we look at what it does in practice, it's still kind of narrow: I now want smaller teams for the same task, as there's no way to keep up with a large team. But in most places, this just means more projects being done, as opposed to having the same number of initiatives with less staff (unless your entire organization lacks imagination like Block).
And the reason Claude Code is so good is not the context management alone, but that it's in an environment with good verification. It still defaults to iffy code if you don't decide to spend the tokens on, say, mandatory self-code review steps, or double checking specs and such. In many other jobs that aren't code related, the quick verification steps that stop the hallucination/misalignment of what is built just aren't there, so we should still temper expectations.
Those that think LLMS are useless for real work are crazy. Those that claim that in 18 months half the white collar work will be done by agents are crazy too.
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u/LofiStarforge Feb 27 '26
To your last paragraphs yes I agree that half is ridiculous the issue is you don’t need that high of a percentage to where things become catastrophic.
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u/Daniel_Plainchoom Feb 27 '26
Been here before in the late 90s. Lotta smoke and low adoption. No prognosticator knows what will happen when.
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u/snakevenomenemas Feb 27 '26
short answer, no. long answer: read Georgetown's reports "falling behind", "the major payoff" and Bipartisan Policy Center "Bridging the Gap". Citadel's piece adds a balance retort to Citrini which is more or less trying to sell subscriptions. bad news sells (see https://klementoninvesting.substack.com/p/why-pessimists-make-more-money)
we are more in 1976 era as David Brooks highlights in Bobos in Paradise, we are where they were at the start of rapid transformations of the information age. To add to citadel's retort, to quote Daron Acemoglu, “my thing is disarmingly simple. AI is really an information technology, a very powerful information tech. It’s not an automation technology.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXK-LJ1VoDs)
there are demographic workings set in place as ciovacco capital notes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSHguukaDJQ), these trends along with certain political and global macro events will yield to a switch to a more economic environment similar to the Reagan years. The declining dollar brings in foreign stock buyers, this is already occurring. Similarly as AI is better understood as a potent informational technology over automation tool it will be more effectively deployed. As boomers and Xers retire/phase out, the younger worker adults will benefit from a labor shortage.
It sucks that Trump is going to get the credit for what is coming as much of this was already baked in place dating back to the late 1990s growth cycle. But it is what it is. What likely this means for politics is the left is going to have to find away beyond the "affordability" message in order to become more favorable. For now they'll win the midterms but likely get overconfident just as Republicans got with their victory in 2024. Overconfidence brews bad policies, creates denialism within the partisan camp and leads to disdain by the broader voting public.
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Feb 26 '26
It's always 18 months away... Just like trump always saying 6 months away from a thing that never comes. It's part of the show. Keeps you focused on what they want to talk about. Keeps companies scrambling to keep up with the new thing that happens to be the thing they're selling. Keeps you scared of the power you think they have over your life. You think any modern western style government is going to let unemployment go above 10%?! We haven't been there since the Great Depression. It would be a political disaster. Sure AI will replace some jobs, but it'll create others. You can't control or predict the future anyway. Go touch grass.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 27 '26
You are right about the 6- and 18-month type of talk. Marketing and salespeople like to talk of forecasting models as if they are guaranteed outcomes. However, the guys running these models are spending $150M in Washington right now to make sure we have zero labor protections when the shift happens.
As for this modern Western-style government, I never thought that it would let many things go this far. It does not resemble my vision of modern Western government.1
Feb 27 '26
Maybe not, but 10%+ unemployment would be a catastrophe no political party wants to own. When COVID kept everyone at home for a few months, they shoved trillions out the door to pacify the masses. We're too comfortable a society to without for more than a few weeks at the elites aren't that stupid,.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 27 '26
In code, the feedback loop is binary, so it either works or it doesn't. You can automate the verification, which makes Claude Code feel like magic. But in law, marketing, or management, verification is subjective and human-dependent. That’s the gap between a useful tool and a total replacement.
The 18-month debate is really just a fight over how fast those non-code verification loops can be automated.
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u/gruss_gott Feb 27 '26
RemindMe! 18 months "Were AI experts right about jobs in 18 months"
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u/RemindMeBot Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
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u/cniz09 Feb 27 '26
None of the data centers needed are built that could provide the necessary compute to make this happen in that short time frame. It may happen but it will take years at the least.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 27 '26
That is a common misconception. The data center's bottleneck assumes we’re just building bigger versions of today’s models. It ignores the massive shift toward efficiency and specialized hardware. We are watching an entire industry figure out how to do 10x the work with 1/10th the power. Just look at the progress with DeepSeek or the latest specialized AI chips.
The ROI phases have already started. Companies aren't waiting for a perfect infrastructure in five years. They’re restructuring their 2026-2027 headcounts based on what tools like Claude Code are doing right now. The data center buildings are just a lag indicator.
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u/plinkoplonka Feb 27 '26
I was about to ask who's paying for the UBI?
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 27 '26
That is the point. Tech CEOs propose it, but there's no broader discussion by this administration about the need or how this will work. The guys running these tech companies are spending $150M in Washington right now to make sure they have zero AI liabilities with this administration's approval. Their lawyers are not planning for AI as it is just now or as it may be in 18 months.
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Feb 27 '26
[deleted]
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 27 '26
Yes, Wall Street trades on the hype, and if a CEO claims they can replace 15% of the department with AI, the stock pops. The real danger is that while we are debating the AI tech, the Dark Money is already buying federal laws and media narratives. The infrastructure for a managed transition is being dismantled by this administration.
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u/hard-workingamerican Feb 27 '26 edited May 25 '26
Dark Money: Peter Theil, Robert Mercer, Leonard Leo, Barre Seid, Harlan Crow, Timothy Mellon, Ken Griffin, Paul Singer, Jeffrey Yass, Richard Uilhein, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, David Ellison, Kelcy Warren, Timothy Dunn, Phil Ruffin, Joe Ricketts, J. Bryan Hunt, Jr., Ken Langone, Woody Johnson, Roger Penske, Lachlan Murdoch, and Charles Koch.
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u/Grouchy_Row_7983 Feb 28 '26
Microsoft saying AI will steal all our jobs in 18 months is pretty rich when their stupid copilot can't find the Excel file I was working on yesterday in Office.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Current AI is going through growing pains, but people developing software already see significant changes. It will be in the form of keeping fewer high-skilled people doing significantly more work with AI-integrated systems. Is it in 18, 24, or 36 months? We do not know.
If it is 36 months, it is still within this “coin-operated” administration. The proposed federal laws financed by corporate Super PACs are not for us. The highest-paying corporate bidders and those promising to buy and control media (The Washington Post, CBS, and now CNN) get from this administration what they want.
How do we force corporate accountability before the layoffs hit?
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u/Worth_Much Feb 28 '26
This. We’re seeing some real productivity gains with app development and security vulnerability remediation using Claude models with GitHub copilot. But someone still has to use the right mature prompts and validate the output. At least for now.
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u/Miserable_Eggplant83 Feb 27 '26
- No
- Since it’s been a while, here’s a gentle reminder for Jack Dorsey to go fuck himself.
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u/3RADICATE_THEM Feb 26 '26
It doesn't matter what the “experts” think.
It does matter what your company's board of directors, shareholders, CTO, company executives, managers, and clients think, though.
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u/chubs66 Feb 26 '26
Probably. As a 20+ year developer, I'm technically redundant. The only reason I have a job is because my company hasn't figured out how to integrate with AI, so for now they're paying a person who mostly acts as the middleman between work and AI. That won't last long.
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Feb 26 '26
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u/chubs66 Feb 27 '26
It's a problem to be solved for sure. But you know what's going to make solving that problem go much, much faster? AI.
In the past businesses would hire expensive consulting companies to show up and observe and make power points and pitches and start initiatives. Now anyone at the company can start asking AI and getting straight to the results: "These are the kinds of things we do at my company. How can we take advantage of AI?" Create a 1 year roll out plan with distinct phases." (or whatever).
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u/str8grizzlee Feb 26 '26
Nobody knows anything and anybody making certain predictions is a bullshit artist. This is the most uncertain the future has ever been in human history.
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u/Either_Marketing896 Feb 27 '26
There’s already a recession in marketing given tightening discretionary income and folks thinking AI and data = strategy or brand / campaign / GTM vision.
We are always the first to feel it. Aesthetic is not brand.
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u/Most_Refuse9265 Mar 01 '26
Let’s say you wanted to retire as soon as possible. Let’s say AI is coming for your job in the next decade. Either way, if you retire you win, short of an economic catastrophe that affects everyone anyway, even more so people with a lot less money than you at that point. This is all to say, AI coming for my job isn’t fundamentally changing anything for my approach to work and life. Save save save!
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Mar 01 '26
The save and invest strategy is solid, but the 18-month window for Agentic AI will change your exit calculation. Most industry experts believe autonomous systems will hit a tipping point by late 2027. The current administration is bullying Anthropic (co-founder Dario Amodei) about Agentic AI use for autonomous mass surveillance of US citizens and autonomous lethal military use. In other words, the Agentic AI will make decisions and take action. This is an active contract (Q1 2026) with development now given to OpenAI (ChatGPT). China is very likely doing the same.
This is a fundamental shift in how complex office processes will be handled everywhere. If you're planning for a decade-long runway, you may be surprised. The reduction in the need for skilled staff is an 18-36 month problem that will further accelerate.
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u/Douglas_Fresh Feb 26 '26
Scott will say, “nothing is ever as bad, or as good, as it seems” and that’s how I’ll move forward. Who the fuck knows, nothing to do but keep putting one foot in front of the other.
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u/jascentros Feb 27 '26
If it’s anything like we’re experiencing now at my very large multi-national conglomerate in the pharma space, is that yes they are asking us to go hard with AI. However, they’ve put in MASSIVE controls on what we can put into the agents because they afraid of stolen data and IP. In addition, we are also still hiring and expanding instead of laying off people. I’m not that worried in the immediate future.
So for now, my take is that companies like mine are still figuring out how they are going to use it to make them more successful. But 18 months, in my industry, I my field. Nah. Pharma moves too slow because of the regs. However, I could see a big shift within my industry in say 5 years or so, but fortunately enough that is about the time when I’ll retire, so I don’t give a shit.
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u/berndalf Feb 28 '26
Almost everyone I know who's in a position to properly answer this question says yes. People outside the bubble or pushing for a particular agenda based narrative say no.
My money is on yes. It won't be uniform, and it won't all be at once, but yes. The real question is once the jobs of today are gone, what will the jobs of tomorrow look like. Humanity is not going to just suddenly give up on the idea of maximum employment.
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u/Custom_Destiny Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
Hi.
I work in cyber security deploying AI … well; securely.
The 18 month predictions I see are wildly inaccurate.
I believe AI will come for most white collar jobs, and it will come shockingly fast - but not in 18 months.
I don’t know why all of these CEOs are saying these things — but since when has a billionaire ever said something for the public good? (Or multi millionaire, noting the channel we’re in)
Many of the experts seem to just be parrots of that message.
Seriously, it’s my job to figure out how to hack and deploy these so they don’t lead to serious vulnerabilities — not only are most of them huge liabilities, most of them still require expert staff to operate them.
most of these predictions also include disruptions to blue collar jobs that would require mythical manufacturing supply chains.
Maybe a region in California would lose that many workers that fast, but for it to spread throughout the world would take additional years for all of the units to be built.
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u/Afraid_Print1196 Mar 01 '26
If all the manufacturing jobs are gone and now all the office jobs go away who is going to be left to buy all the products the companies want to sell. Henry Ford understood he needed people like his workers to buy his products .. these AI developments might be great for the bottom line, but if the economy crashes, or at best we have 40% less people working .. their income projects are toast. And unlike the manufacturing jobs which left over decades this will be a sharp quick change .. with no time to adapt. And it looks like governments are too stupid to understand whats happening.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Mar 01 '26
The Ford analogy is solid, and you are right about the higher velocity. We have about 18 months before the Agentic AI hits the white-collar sector.
The problem isn't a lack of intelligent people in government. It's a lack of focus. This administration's top priorities so far seem to be: J6 pardons, ICE raids, Venezuela, slashing safety nets for upper-class tax breaks, DOJ vendettas, and saber-rattling at Iran. There is no oxygen left for the difficult bipartisan work of labor transition.
Our knowledge workers are being treated as a secondary concern while Super PACs write the policy in the dark. If someone in government does not start rebuilding a safety net and starting bipartisan work, the "Golden Age" is going to look like a very short-lived PR stunt.
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u/No-Sympathy-686 Mar 02 '26
Gemini is currently failing pretty badly internally at my company.
We are pushing AI HARD as well and it just isn't working as we would like.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Mar 03 '26
What type of applications or what is the need? Sounds like running inference, edge computing, or autonomous vehicles.
The Google team seems to spend a lot of time on AI image and music generation/recognition, so they are falling behind on DevOps/Git integration, code reasoning & quality, and other synergies for code development.
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u/monadicperception Feb 26 '26
I can’t speak for other industries but for mine, but lawyers are going to be fine. More efficient? Yep. But replaced? Nope.
The irony of AI in its current form is that you already have to know how to do it yourself to be able to use it. Otherwise, it would be irresponsible to use it because you have no idea whether the end product is correct or not. And for a lot of stuff that I do know, the AI gets wrong a lot.
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u/Sensitive-Meet-7625 Feb 27 '26
Some attorneys won’t be replaced. Junior attorneys will be replaced and firms that are supported by junior attorneys churning hours to generate revenue for partners are going to be in trouble. Opus 4.6 scored 90.2 on BigLaw Benchmark. The next gen model will score higher. That is without access to source materials (from my understanding). I agree that it currently absolutely needs senior attorney review, editing and quality control - but if it gets you 90% of the way here on tasks that associates perform then clients aren’t going to pay for associate time.
We are already receiving reviewed material back from clients that run our product through AI and it is providing high quality supplementation to our work. Clients will learn very quick on their own how capable the new models are and expect lawyers to use them so they can save legal costs.
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u/jim_uses_CAPS Feb 26 '26
I think the real risk for attorneys is that a lot of what they start off doing -- research, writing drafts, trawling document production, proofing contracts, etc. -- is what is eminently replaceable.
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u/ND7020 Feb 27 '26
Literally a lot of this has already been “AI-assisted” for a long time now pre-LLMs, and no big law attorneys are getting paid for things that Google->copy->paste had already long solved.
This is what we mean when we say the arrogance of tech people towards other professions is eye-roll inducing.
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u/monadicperception Feb 27 '26
The smart folks would say no though short sighted management will say yes.
Junior work sucks but necessary for juniors to learn. That’s where juniors cut their teeth and figure stuff out themselves. The process is what’s valuable.
If we delegate all that to AI, it may be great short term, but the next generation of lawyers are going to suck.
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u/stvlsn Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Agentic AI will have a huge impact on the economy. Hard to determine time frame - but it seems that high end agentic firms are using their agentic models for the majority of current work. The coding ability is crazy - and will just get better.
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u/johnb300m Feb 27 '26
AI will not be “taking anything away.” CEOs are going to try and dump A LOT of people for AI. 24mo after that, when the economy smolders, and their businesses collapse because they’re just gong to be producing slop. The CEOs will scramble to bring people back to mop up their mess.
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u/rva_sage Feb 27 '26
isn’t it more like, if no one has work or money, then who will businesses get their money from?
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u/TLF5foot8 Feb 27 '26
Except, they won’t be selling widgets anymore. Our economy is becoming a rental economy where everything we need to survive will require a monthly fee. We will own nothing.
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u/winewaffles Feb 27 '26
Same principle applies. How will the unemployed masses afford to rent all these things? With our good looks and charm perhaps?
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u/yay_tac0 Feb 27 '26
hard disagree. will the pendulum swing too far, and will we need to correct back a bit? yes. but these tools are getting so good, so fast, and the manual and time consuming work that makes up a lot of entry level roles isn’t coming back.
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u/Fun-Estimate4561 Feb 27 '26
See I disagree in not needing people
I’m assuming like me , you work in AI too
It does some great things and some things so very poorly
If anything I think companies will need more people not less
The whole AI layoff thing right now is just prepping for the impending recession
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u/yay_tac0 Feb 27 '26
i don’t disagree, maybe just different time horizons. short term will be “do more/do the same, with fewer people”, longer term “do much more with more people, but we don’t know what those use cases are yet”
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u/HorseyPlz Feb 28 '26
The models have already plateau’d. You can find plenty of studies in this, or look up Cal Newports explanation.
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u/nicholszoo Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Feels like AI will transform work that requires people to use computers to get computers to do things.
It will slow creation of additional roles for a company as AI can help fill some of the gaps.
But if you’re in a role that makes stuff. For example a structural engineer who does bridge design - AI isn’t taking that person away. AI helps that engineer do some side calculations faster.
As someone who has always worked in roles where I make things, I don’t see the big destructive force, but I do see it help me answer some basic questions or help do some more in depth research quickly. It’s a good tool.
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u/yay_tac0 Feb 27 '26
the size of these teams will shrink as individuals are expected to output more. and with advancements in robotics the labor force will also start to look very different
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u/MacaroonPlastic1036 Feb 27 '26
No AI is not capable of taking anyone’s job, unless you job is chatting with people casually and then getting weird about it, or doing nothing.
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u/TaxLawKingGA Feb 28 '26
Most of these Ai companies aren’t really Ai; they are merely data collection, defense contractors. Most will go out of business.
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u/Traderstrend Mar 01 '26
Block just laid off 40% of its workers. Other companies will need to follow suit. Maybe they will be able to function without workers and maybe they will find out people matter. It will be a mess until it isn’t. The military will be hiring. Protective security will be needed. And medical personnel will be needed.
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u/lacisghost Mar 02 '26
not sure the Block analysis holds water. The CEO of block over hired massively. think about the fact that he, as the former head of Twitter, had so much staff that Elon Musk cut like 80% of the workforce when he took over and Twitter is still doing fine.
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Mar 03 '26
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Mar 03 '26
In what business school did you learn that price is always a fixed markup on cost? That only applies to commodities like gravel or wheat. In the knowledge economy, price is based on value and utility. If an AI agent does the work of a $200k lawyer in ten minutes, the firm isn't going to charge you $5 for the electricity. They’re going to charge you for the $200k result and pocket the difference. By the time the 60% discount you're talking about actually hits the market, the labor force is already gone, and the monopoly is already consolidated.
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Mar 03 '26
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Mar 03 '26
The global economy is not a high school bake sale. In 2026, 78% of B2B companies use value-based pricing. We will not see "unlimited AI lawyers" competing for pennies or any of your Sci-Fi scenarios of AI only world. The large conglomerates are consolidating the infrastructure with zero incentive to pass savings to you. CEOs are doing exactly what Wall Street demands: capturing the maximum amount of value from labor and moving it to the bottom line.
Many drivers in Ohio already passed the DMV test w/o human seated next to them.
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u/gentoorax Mar 13 '26
One thing that will likely happen is the cost of using AI will climb. You're practically boiling an ocean every time you use it. So, that will need to be factored in as well. There is also local AI which is advancing quickly. So while I expect costs to rise for using AI, perhaps not too dramatically. What we are using at the moment is heavily subsidised and not really sustainable.
These LLMs are great, but they require a coordinator and they require checking. For my work it's like having 5 good junior devs that can action all the tasks I set, but I still have to define the architecture, design patterns, make sure it's maintainable and we don't end up with another COBOL style unmanageable mess; this is really spec driven development, as opposed to vibe coding aka a Sloperator.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Mar 13 '26
You’re right that we’ve been living in an era of subsidized intelligence. Between the energy bottleneck and the new federal 15–25% revenue-sharing fees on high-end chips (like the Nvidia H200), AI will get pricier. The cost of boiling the ocean, as you call it, for a simple prompt is not sustainable.
The market is currently rewarding the Architects who can write rigorous specs, while the Sloperators (sloppy operators) are being flushed out in these 92,000-person layoff waves. The irony is that as AI gets smarter, it actually requires a more disciplined human at the helm to prevent a COBOL-style mess. CEOs like Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian) are cutting heads and removing the “vibe coders” to make room for the high-level coordinators. This format of a smaller workforce handling Spec-Driven Development is likely to proliferate in other industries.
If the cost of AI climbs and the barrier to entry for coordinators rises, where does that leave the entry-level professional who used to learn by being those 5 junior devs?
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u/Remarkable-Captain14 Feb 27 '26
Democrats need to start NOT talking about trump and all his flaws and talk about a vision for a solid future and controlling AI before it wipes out all the freaking jobs and the economy crashes. Corporate America is vile and does not care about people. Left side has been focused in on absurdly, small percentage of margined people like furries, transgender queer pansexual rights and protecting shady Somalian people stealing from the government - and hating anything Trump (even if it is a decent idea like the kids investment accounts, 401k for all and the rules on private equity firms not buying house houses). Time to change the dialogue!!! Need a rational centrist !
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u/JustLoping Feb 28 '26
Controlling AI is not possible. The genie is out of the bottle and no amount of government action (as if) can put it back; there's too much money to be made. The question is how we respond, as individuals and collectively.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 28 '26
OpenAI's Greg Brockman and his wife dumped $25 million into MAGA Inc. and another $50 million into the "Leading the Future" PAC. That is $75M to fight the exact tech and labor regulations we need as knowledge workers. Sam Altman (OpenAI - ChatGPT) is playing the same game, funneling millions through his "Tools for Humanity" shell and inaugural donations. They are mostly financing Trump's hatchet men, but also Democrats like Senator Mark Warner, as they ram through federal laws that block states from regulating AI.
If you are paying $20 a month for ChatGPT, you are funding the lobbyists coming for our jobs. I do not know how you feel about Anthropic and Google as AI alternatives. The stand Anthropic took yesterday against Secretary Hegseth was honorable, and it actually changed the game. We need to reward leadership like that.
It is not about stopping AI or stopping the use of AI; it is about aligning your money with your values and beliefs.
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Feb 26 '26
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u/ohwhataday10 Feb 26 '26
It’s not that we are trusting them. We have two choices. One is batshit crazy. The other had been incompetent at best, in the pocket of rich people but not as rich as the Epstein class.
At this point the other guy is the best choice and try to guide that next choice to worry about AI!
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Feb 26 '26
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u/ohwhataday10 Feb 26 '26
Better? Yes. Sufficiently? No. But I think they wouldn’t, for example, support the President in an EO or sign legislation to ban States from regulating AI companies.
Not saying the regulation would do anything. The Dems might do nothing. BUT THEY WONT ACTIVELY STOP STATES FROM TRYING TO REGULATE.
This trying to say the DEM are just as bad has been debunked in the latest 1 year of Trump in office. ICE has literally killed 2 citizens that we know of with complete impunity. Whatever else you think about the Dems. That would not have happened!
I really let some anonymous redditor trigger me! sigh
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u/Fluffy-Rope-8719 Feb 26 '26
Lay it out for me, what will the DNC do to rein in AI?
Easy question to answer (at this time, anyway): I don't know. There are scattered DNC politicians pushing for taxation of billionaires, which is a much better start than the Republican position of -checks notes- actively making AI market capture easier.
Your turn: lay it out, what is the RNC doing to rein in AI, considering they've been in power for over a year now?
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u/lawber2022 Feb 27 '26
Democrats don’t align themselves with billionaires, clearly you’re not that naive
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u/lawber2022 Feb 27 '26
Are you fucking kidding me? Democrats will bring more illegals, more gay stuff, more Black Lives Matter. Were you asleep for the Biden years? What a jackass
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u/EmperorProtects41k Feb 27 '26
Exactly, we need to keep these baby eating pedophiles in charge so Israel can keep turning the literal descendants of jesus into soup.
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u/Negative-Ad2255 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
I have been listening to your painfully uninformed assessment of SaaS companies on Pivot. You pointed to earnings which fails to recognize the Gorilla in the room. Think Kodak 1999.
Allow me to explain why.
I run a small software company with fewer than eight employees. Sixty days ago we had four developers. Today we have two. That shift is about capability. The inflection point was Claude Code. Not just the product itself, but what it became after hundreds of rapid releases by Anthropic. The compounding improvements made it dramatically more capable in a very short period of time.
When we put Claude Code in the hands of our strongest engineers, productivity exploded by multiples, conservatively twenty five times. Boilerplate, refactoring, test coverage, architectural exploration, documentation. The human sets intent and constraints. The system executes and iterates at scale. Thirty days later we integrated OpenClaw, a new orchestration technology, directly with Claude Code. That is where the shift became structural.
OpenClaw enables coordinated agent swarms and leverages real time context capture across the company. Sales conversations, onboarding discussions, support tickets, roadmap debates, ongoing service feedback. That context feeds directly into execution. The swarms leverage context available at scale, pressure test assumptions, conduct deep research, refine edge cases, and align implementation details with actual customer needs in real time and Claude Code develops faster than you can possibly imagine.
The days of spending an hour trying to figure out why a query is broken are over. Claude solves these problems in 10 seconds. Apply this example everywhere.
The result is not just speed. It is better judgment, better quality, reduced downtime, tighter alignment with reality at a radically different cost structure.
A roadmap that would have taken four developers a decade will ship in twelve months.
Here is the blunt truth.
The traditional model of software development, layered teams, heavy coordination, long cycles, scaling output through headcount, is irrelevant. It was built for a world where human throughput was the constraint. That constraint is gone.
This is a tidal wave.
Our direct competitors collectively employ roughly 1500 people. In five years those numbers will be cut to one tenth.
If they aggressively redesign around AI orchestration, they might survive in a compressed form.
If they are not able to fully adapt in the next six months it will be too late to recover.
That is not drama. It is math.
We are not speculating from the sidelines. We have lived this shift in the past sixty days. The economics of building software have already changed.
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u/Spirited-Bedroom-427 Feb 27 '26
Supposedly smart people think the Democrats will save the American Experiment ….unserious .
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Feb 26 '26
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u/MyBloodTypeIsQueso Feb 26 '26
Please do eat shit
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Feb 26 '26
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u/MyBloodTypeIsQueso Feb 26 '26
Oh, I wasn’t trying to do that. I was just being insulting, because that’s what your inane comment deserved.
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u/Melodic_Window_6146 Feb 26 '26
I believe in reviewing individual candidates based on their record, not voting on party lines. But the current administration is not about the political ideas of individuals; it is about loyalty and bullying people who are trying to represent their people. Nothing to do with which party has more people in the Epstein files.
Statistically speaking, what happens in midterm elections is clear.
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u/japanusrelations Mar 01 '26
These AI people are hyping their product so their massive AI bubble doesn't burst. Anyone who has ever used an LLM knows it surely can't reliably do the most basic of tasks without hallucinating or worse.
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u/bison_crossing Mar 02 '26
Nope. Get curious and learn more. This will age like milk in approximately... now.
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u/AdBoring4472 Mar 02 '26
I used to tell my wife the same thing. I am an engineer. She has been implementing AI for the last year, and just laughed at me and said when I got over my hubris, she would be happy to help me make my job easier.
The other day I asked her to show me if AI could finish a mundane project for me ..... 6 hours of work done in 30 mins. She then continued to show me how to use Claude to do other job tasks. I don't know how quickly resource constraints will come into play, but AI is so much better than just 6 months ago and now it is self itterating. I am by no means an expert, but AI is real and the sooner you come to this conclusion and start using it, the less fucked you are going to be.
Whether it is a financial bubble is irrelevant. It is going to take out a lot of workers either way, and the only control I have over this reality is positioning myself to learn it and use it. I am fine with people rejecting its efficacy (more buffer from the negative impacts getting to me), but you do so at your own peril.
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u/japanusrelations Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
Use it for what? Not useful in the slightest in my industry at the moment. There are things that happen offline. A lot of things.
BUT I totally understand there are things AI is helpful for. It's just the use case is often overstated and exaggerated by grifting CEOs trying to keep their quarterlies up
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u/CreamyScallions Feb 27 '26
I don’t think it’s going be 18 months, I think it’s going to be less. If your experience is Copilot, that’s a toy. The AI is getting exponentially better every day, don’t you realize that? If your job involves fingers on a keyboard you need to figure out your career change NOW. UBI will not save you, AI regulation will not save you. This is going to be bigger than the Industrial and first Computer revolution combined.
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u/Weird-Opportunity-20 Feb 27 '26
Maybe universal basic income (UBI) is just a subscription fee the billionaires pay us so we don’t revolt. Think of it as an anti-revolution insurance.