2026-02-28
20 分钟Our colleague David Uberti was doom-scrolling on Sunday night,
like a lot of us do, when a certain post caught his eye.
I was reading in bed on my iPad this interesting sub-sec post from a financial research firm I hadn't heard of before.
It was published by a relatively unknown firm called Citrini Research,
and it was written like a memo from the future.
From June 2028, looking back at how artificial intelligence transformed the economy.
And it basically framed this report as sort of like a post-mortem on what happened over the time between now and then and how the economy has changed.
It read to me like really good science fiction.
I didn't put it down, despite the fact that it was 7,000 plus words long.
The picture the Citrini report painted in the future was bleak.
We describe it as a doomsday report, and very much so it was.
In the scenario that they outlined,
there was something like 10.2% unemployment across the United States,
which is worse than what it was in the depths of the Great Recession.
The report proposed that AI will become so good at writing code and replacing jobs that it could become very bad for the broader economy.
Basically, the question is not whether AI is bearish or bullish for the economy.
Is it what if it's so bullish that it becomes bearish?
David wasn't the only one reading the Sotrini post that night.
It was going viral.
And it was freaking people out.