George Hahn

The answer is always, the list of things I would like to do is nine miles longer than what we can pull off.

But as the cost of execution drops, new demand will likely come from areas that previously didn't have access to programmers.

Several developers suggested that the number of software jobs might actually grow, Thompson wrote.

An untold number of small firms around the country would love to have their own custom-made software, but were never big enough to hire, say, a five-person programmer team necessary to produce it.

The most frightening scenario is one in which AI disruption outpaces recovery velocity, hits every sector simultaneously, and encounters little pushback from policymakers.

But this ignores that societal tumult usually isn't due to unemployment, but people who are working yet still hungry, resulting in a loss of economic dignity and narratives to assign blame.

If it sounds as if we're already there, trust your instincts.

Inside Silicon Valley, the vibe is bleak.

As Jasmine Sun wrote in the New York Times, Most people I know in the AI industry think the median person is screwed and they have no idea what to do about it.

Worse, many say that artificial general intelligence, a technology that may never materialize, will create a permanent underclass.

That belief is fueling a last chopper out of Saigon mentality, where people see a limited window to build wealth before AI and robotics fully replace human labor.

I believe this is a consensual hallucination.

Techno-narcissists have over-indexed on the rapid advances in AI capabilities while completely ignoring everything else.

AI's popularity is correlated to wealth, with only those earning more than $200,000 per year viewing AI as a net positive.

That's not a reflection on AI, but yet another signal that the incumbents, the old and wealthy, have successfully hoarded opportunity.

In other words, the AI jobs freak out is the latest act in America's ongoing wealth inequality drama.

The Gini coefficient is how economists measure inequality.

Zero indicates everyone has exactly the same wealth.

A score of 1.0 means one individual owns everything.

In the U.S., we're higher than 0.8, about the level seen when the French began separating people from their heads.