Ryan Knudson

Tools that allow for AI agents, or digital assistants, to actually do stuff for you.

And there have been advancements in coding tools, like Anthropic's Cloud Code and OpenAI's Codex, which make it possible for just about anyone to write computer code.

One AI founder compared this moment to February 2020, when we could see a pandemic brewing on the horizon in other countries, but didn't know exactly what was about to hit us.

Okay, well, let's dive into that Substack post.

It was written by Citrini Research.

First of all, what is Citrini Research?

Yeah.

Tell me more about the future world that this report lays out.

What do they think is going to happen?

Here's one of the authors of the report, Alip Shah, in an interview with Bloomberg.

The report lays out a potential downward spiral for white-collar workers.

It starts with software.

Because AI makes it so easy to create software on the cheap, big software companies might not need as many employees, or might not need to exist at all.

At the same time, the report suggests that consumers will also start using AI agents to complete tasks.

Like for online shopping, as in you'll tell your AI agent to go buy shoes for you rather than searching around for the cheapest price.

As AI agents take over more aspects of commerce, they'll likely look for efficiencies that could lead to more job losses.

For instance, one of the decisions AI agents might make is to avoid credit cards and pay with something that doesn't have fees, like cryptocurrency.

That could devastate the credit card companies, leading to more layoffs.

A key point of the report is that AI will create something the authors coin as ghost GDP.

Instead, the report suggests that the wealth created by AI will only benefit a small number of people,