Imagining an AI-driven “2028 Global Intelligence Crisis”: as white-collar layoffs grow, the human-centric consumer economy withers and the social fabric frays
A Thought Exercise in Financial History, from the Future — Preface — What if our AI bullishness continues to be right …
Citrini Research
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Discussion
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@citrini7
@citrini7
on x
This is the first article I've ever written with the express hope that I am wrong. People discussing the topics raised, becoming more proactive and being aware of the risks inherent to what's happening in technology is how that happens. I'm glad people are trying to prove or [ima…
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@andyfang
Andy Fang
on x
We definitely believe agentic commerce will be transformative to the industry. DoorDash will need to continue to earn the right to service customers (agents?) end-to-end (discovery, ordering, delivery, support, etc.). With agents, how customers determine their preferences, how …
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@citrini7
@citrini7
on x
I spent 100 hours over the past week researching, writing and editing the piece we just put out. It's a scenario, not a prediction like most of our work. But it was rigorously constructed, dismissing it outright requires the kind of intellectual laziness that tends to get expen…
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@citrini7
@citrini7
on x
JUNE 2028. The S&P is down 38% from its highs. Unemployment just printed 10.2%. Private credit is unraveling. Prime mortgages are cracking. AI didn't disappoint. It exceeded every expectation. What happened? https://www.citriniresearch.com/ ...
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@alapshah1
Alap Shah
on x
To replicate marketplaces like $DASH or $AXP you need to replicate the demand and supply side. AI apps will do the demand side work for you, so to compete w DoorDash you just need to build the driver and restaurant network. The biggest competitor will likely be direct restaurant
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@teortaxestex
@teortaxestex
on x
the discourse around Citrini is blowing up because this is the specific piece that finally conveyed to the white collars what crappy artists have been going through in the last 4 years. So they lash out, like artists did. [image]
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@draecomino
James Wang
on x
The purpose of the Citrini piece isn't really about specific predictions. It's about jolting people to think. And to that end it's a great success.
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@jackclarksf
Jack Clark
on x
Figuring out what the trends will be for AI and employment feels like figuring out how deep learning might influence computer vision in ~2010 - clearly, something significant will happen, but there is very little data out of which you can make a trend.
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@gavinsbaker
Gavin Baker
on x
Loved the @Citrini7 thought piece. However seems unlikely we will have enough compute for this scenario in 2028, or even the early 2030s. Distillation, quantization and Edge AI cannot bridge the gap. AGI is an event horizon with a significant compute dependence.
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@captgouda24
Nicholas Decker
on x
This scenario is total gobbledygook, btw, and it's disappointing that people are looking at this as serious. It's entirely dependent on aggregate demand, something the Fed has complete control over, falling without any action.
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@buccocapital
@buccocapital
on x
I just keep trying to remind myself: these fucking psychos vomited Google, the greatest business in the world, down to 15x earnings It can always go lower. These are worse businesses at higher prices. It can always go lower
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@thezvi
Zvi Mowshowitz
on x
The central point is to engage with the unique details we hadn't considered, not whether we'll fix an aggregate demand shortfall (yes we will), or whether we'd all die from superintelligence while this is happening (probably), or whether the timing is too fast (it is), or there
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@ben_golub
Ben Golub
on x
Citrini spent >100 hrs on his viral AI doomfic. @RefineInk did about 6 hours of reasoning in about 16 minutes to produce a review explaining what's wrong with it (parallelization ftw). Its points are on target, I think - short 🧵 and Refine demo.
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@buccocapital
@buccocapital
on x
I thought it was a nice, compelling piece of science fiction. I am genuinely, genuinely shocked by the market response This is “get me out at any price” action on already bombed out names I don't know what to do with that. Right now nothing. Just observing
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@cloud_opinion
@cloud_opinion
on x
Claude Code for President - 2028 LFG!!!!
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@mweinbach
Max Weinbach
on x
Wanna know why SaaS and security likely isn't dead with AI? When Crowdstrike took down Windows systems, hospitals, airlines, and basically every major service, those companies shifted the blame and liability to Crowdstrike. Can't do that with a vertical system
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@mr_derivatives
Heisenberg
on x
Everyone thinks that Citrini article heard around the world spells doom for the stock market. But he said the $SPX will hit 8,000 before the so called doom. That's another 20% upside from here. Let's grab some drinks, come back to the dance floor, and let's talk to those
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@alexia
Alexia Bonatsos
on x
Popular markets commentator Citrini7 who you just heard of for the first time today.
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@conorsen
Conor Sen
on x
For one day at least the Citrini piece has DeepSeek moment vibes.
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@michaeljburry
Cassandra Unchained
on x
And you think I'm bearish. https://www.citriniresearch.com/ ... [image]
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@mweinbach
Max Weinbach
on x
The idea that agents will autonomously make purchasing decisions with a person's money is far fetched, everyone wants to know how their income is spent. and the idea that brands are dead because agents make decisions are also not happening, it's purchasing for a person and that
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@thestalwart
Joe Weisenthal
on x
The @Citrini7 selloff [image]
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@turnernovak
Turner Novak
on x
Crazy that DoorDash, the company that exists because we're lazy, will be going bankrupt in 18 months because some dude was too lazy to order DoorDash and just had his agent build his own version
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@buccocapital
@buccocapital
on x
Software? Zero Card networks? Zero DoorDash? Zero Your job? Zero Your marriage? Zero The top of the K? Zero The bottom of the K? Zero The entire Indian subcontinent? Believe it or not...Zero
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@fabknowledge
@fabknowledge
on x
Okay finally read the Citrini piece. No one knows the future, and i think that theres a lot of disclaimers being like “yeah this is p speculative” but the core thrust of it is that information work itself has a real premium and pricing power that has been embedded into it, and
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@can
@can
on x
im sorry but the “ai in 2028” essay isn't good. you picked doordash as your “copied by ai” prime example?
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@sarthakgh
Sar Haribhakti
on x
A large part of tech twitter experience is now going back and forth on AI boosterism <> doomerism spectrum via viral native articles
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@eric_seufert
Eric Seufert
on x
Right. The AI doomer report is intellectually sloppy and belies a deep misunderstanding of the economics of consumer technology broadly but of agentic commerce specifically. Why would $DASH and $UBER not be the principal beneficiaries of agentic commerce by simply embedding tha…
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@johnloeber
John Loeber
on x
Contra Citrini7
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@stevehou
Steve Hou
on x
I've been watching the responses to the Citrini piece all night. It's interesting that one of the most often mentioned “critique” is that they left out fiscal policy response. I find that the least interesting bit. Sure, fiscal policy will respond eventually, almost
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@ericbalchunas
Eric Balchunas
on x
Can you imagine the money they'd print in this situation? Biblical-level QE. Interesting thought experiment tho.. (altho I tend to think breakthrough tech creates new industries/jobs that are hard to see ahead of time even as it disintermediates others)
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@hedgedirty
@hedgedirty
on x
If unemployment gets to 6.0%, the fed is cutting to zero. Above 6.5 the QE helicopter drops start. You might lose in real terms on assets by inflation but nominal values will rip because the financial system will have more liquidity than the Pacific Ocean
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@deanwball
Dean W. Ball
on x
Regarding the future of SaaS as discussed in the Citrini article: basically what I think will happen is that the companies who purely provide software products and services will be cooked, but that, ironically enough given the name, that's not what a lot of SaaS firms actually
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@buccocapital
@buccocapital
on x
Very well-written and very depressing science fiction. Worthy of your time to read and consider
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@tszzl
Roon
on x
aggregate demand is a parameter our civilization tunes at will when we have the wherewithal to do so so none of this adds
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@dystopiabreaker
@dystopiabreaker
on x
okay opus 6.0, implement economic controls at the fed to solve the deflationary pressure and falling aggregate demand. make no mistakes.
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@chrispainteryup
Chris Painter
on x
Oh man, this is excellent. It feels like the first scenario I've read that fully plays out the economic implications of automating white-collar work, which is important given their political significance.
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@skooookum
@skooookum
on x
I read the whole thing. Great piece. Agree (thesis): we're building an economy on assumptions about labor income that are increasingly fragile, and the financial system hasn't priced that fragility Disagree (timeline): I think it's ~2032
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@danhockenmaier
Dan Hockenmaier
on x
This piece shows a profound lack of understanding of how marketplaces work and why they are defensible. “A competent developer could deploy a functional competitor in weeks, and dozens did, enticing drivers away from DoorDash and Uber Eats by passing 90-95% of the delivery fee
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@hackteck
Erik van Eykelen
on x
Citrini identifies the right risks, this counter piece identifies the right brakes. The outcome depends on which runs faster, and nobody knows that yet.
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@jon_stokes
Jon Stokes
on x
This slaps if you have no idea how B2B SaaS works. (Apologies to all my smart mutuals who are impressed by this, but I just can't with it.) [image]
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@gergelyorosz
Gergely Orosz
on x
Eh. I just don't buy this because I actually understand specific examples all too well: 1. It paints a picture of DoorDash disrupted by vibe coded alternatives. Dude. DoorDash / Uber moat is NOT software!! It's real-world physical logistics. AI cannot disrupt DD... 2. (cont'd)
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@teortaxestex
@teortaxestex
on x
chuckled on this but ultimately, although a good piece, it doesn't appreciate another part of the problem. It's not that we (Americans actually; most others are legit screwed) may run out of jobs, it's that many humans become unemployable. Tell horses about comparative advantage.…
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@midnight_captl
@midnight_captl
on x
Citrini is SPIKING everyone's CORTISOL levels through the roof 💀 BUT they're just jestermaxxing the SF ai doom narrative. TL;DR, this is how we think the game's going to play out: >AI will lead to massive deflation >To address this, the government will money print maximus [video]
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@stevehou
Steve Hou
on x
What a day that has been defined by the @Citrini7 essay! I wonder how many will still feel the same way about it when they wake up tomorrow as they do today. This is truly a thought-provoking piece, even more so than I had initially appreciated when we chatted about it. I can
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@loopify
@loopify
on x
7,000 words in the most viral article today but I know you guys don't read so here is a summary: ∙ It's a fictional memo written from June 2028 looking back, exploring what happens if AI succeeds so well it actually crashes the economy ∙ AI coding tools get so good by late
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@stevenglinert
@stevenglinert
on x
Amazing response. This whole article was just unbelievable gibberish.
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@gergelyorosz
Gergely Orosz
on x
So now the examples from two industries I know pretty well thanks to having worked there / been involved in them (travel agents + ridesharing/food delivery) read well but are just BS at the fundamental level... other parts I don't know well read well.... but what are the chances
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@gergelyorosz
Gergely Orosz
on x
2. The example of AI agents disrupting travel agents because AI agents can find cheaper travel deals than what travel agents offer. Also BS!! I worked at Skyscanner (massive airline + hotel + car rental aggregator.) Travel agents have the most of offering the cheapest tickets /
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@danhockenmaier
Dan Hockenmaier
on x
@Citrini7 I understand the argument. There is a major flaw in it: Customers (or the agents acting on their behalf) don't just care about “getting the lowest price”. They care about: - Access to all of the best restaurants, full menus, accurate prices - Fast and reliable delivery …
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@emollick
Ethan Mollick
on x
Like AGI 2027, this is “hard” science fiction - it is an attempt at scenario building (which is useful!) but not a fully plausible path. I think @alexolegimas's write-ups on the potential economics around AGI are a more useful basis for your predictions: https://aleximas.substack…
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@citrini7
@citrini7
on x
Okay you can separate the reaction to the piece solely along the lines of people who understood the DASH point and people who somehow thought the point was that code was a moat for DASH (stupid). I am going to spell it out extremely simply. 1) Agentic commerce = agents are
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@cryptoklotz
Doug Funnie
on x
JUNE 2028 You're a millennial who pivoted to cash, and was finally able to afford a home. You bag a 4 bedroom house in Austin for 250k, down from its original listing price of 1.1m There are dozens of former software engineers bidding to mow your lawn for $15
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@citrini7
@citrini7
on x
in America, it's illegal to think about bearish outcomes. even if you've been bullish for 3 years straight - consider a bearish scenario and you're excommunicated from the twitterati [image]
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@jigarshahdc
Jigar Shah
on x
Well argued. Captured my argument well. Also we are still short 2 million trades people.
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@geiger_capital
@geiger_capital
on x
My favorite part of the @Citrini7 piece India is going to be absolutely decimated due to their entire economy being reliant on providing cheap white-collar workers to the West. Probably spot on, actually. [image]
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@indian_bronson
@indian_bronson
on x
Not even mad anymore at how bad the Citrine essay is, I'm just disappointed in how many of you were taken in. It is not a good feeling to have one's estimation of even a single peer's intelligence revised downwards. Dozens? Almost unbearable.
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@arindube
Arin Dube
on x
Provocative take. Here's a simplified Keynesian translation: automation redistributes income toward capital owners with lower MPC, weakening aggregate demand. Higher unemployment reinforces this through lowering wages further (wage Phillips curve). The shock pushes the economy
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@tmtlongshort
@tmtlongshort
on x
If you're a PM and none of your analysts were imaginative enough to describe a scenario like Citrini just did months ago at a minimum ...as well as what the likely measures the govt would take to mitigate the probabilities in response... you are not properly equipped to deal with
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@splitcapital
Zaheer
on x
7 million+ impressions on one of the most optimistic outcomes of AI being digested by white collar workers, globally. The surprising learning is that so many people are caught off guard by this outcome as if it wasn't abundantly obvious that employment would fall off a cliff?
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@illscience
Anish Acharya
on x
a different way this could go down: - a 20% productivity increase mostly shows up as a four day work week since its massively difficult to automate 100% of a job - deflation (not disinflation) drives real prices down in healthcare and education, as administrative work gets
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@cryptoklotz
Doug Funnie
on x
this is prob the most depressing thing i've read in eons, simply through its plausibility would love to see someone cope-refute this just to feel better lol
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@sammykoppelman
Sam Koppelman
on x
Like a horror movie you can't look away from, @Citrini7 wrote an article here that hasn't stopped rattling around in my mind. If it's even 20% right... the world is going to look very different.
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@citrini7
@citrini7
on x
If you want to read a piece that lays out the best bull/base case scenario, you should go read “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital” by Perez. The book argues that every technological advancement follows the same framework as it relates to public markets. There's an
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@trungtphan
Trung Phan
on x
A must read. Here is one section on how AI agents negotiating 24/7 for the user will massively drive down profit margins on professional services (travel booking, insurance renewals, financial advice, real estate agents etc). Any category where the value prop is “I will [image]
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@jamesborow
@jamesborow
on x
The new millennial in tech Sunday scaries is doomer content built to read at your kids basketball game.
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@econberger
Guy Berger
on x
This was an interesting read but I'm not sure it's internally consistent. Main questions that came to mind: 1/ Those who own the agents - what are they doing with the money they're making? Why isn't THAT fueling employment, GDP and stock prices? 2/ interest rates: high or low?
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@___4o____
@___4o____
on x
The whole economy is now blindly operating under the assumption that AI is accelerating on the AGI 2027 timeline. What a fucking joke. LLM psychosis clearly extends far beyond SF now. The normies have no idea how this technology actually works and have fallen for the Sam Altman
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@itzsuds
Sudarshan
on x
Citrini mostly has it right - in a fast take off scenario, software and the trillions of dollars of economic value created from jobs that make & use it collapses to ~$0 He asked for push back so, 6 things to note: [1] This is *too* focused on a SaaS-first world. The “meta” will
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@realestaterahul
Rahul Chhajed
on x
One of the most thought provoking pieces I've read in a while. Touches on everything from AI's relationship with labor, the zeroing of the intermediary economy, the practical effects on our financial system, and more. One thing is for sure, massive change is coming. Must Read!
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@benwfreeman1
Benjamin Freeman
on x
My favorite snip-it: “Over the past 50 years, the US economy built a giant rent-extraction layer on top of human limitations: things take time, patience runs out. Trillions of dollars of enterprise value depended on those constraints persisting... Agents removed the friction.” [i…
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@charles0neill
Charlie O'Neill
on x
I think the simplest, most likely reason this is wrong is that demand isn't fixed. The whole argument treats the economy as a fixed pool of cognitive tasks. If AI does more of them then humans do fewer then income falls and economy spiral. But that only holds if radically
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@godsburnt
Shibo
on x
This article is the most important thing you'll read this year and it's available to everyone. One thing. Just read it. Almost nobody will. And in a few months they'll wish they had.
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@jesse_livermore
Jesse Livermore
on x
Hell of a quote from @Citrini7 here: “We had overestimated the value of ‘human relationships.’ Turns out that a lot of what people called relationships was simply friction with a friendly face.”
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@goodguyguaranty
@goodguyguaranty
on x
My old prediction that we'll all live in a generative metaverse while our physical surroundings degrade and a small group of overlords runs the simulation is looking pretty good right now. This is also the plot of Ready Player One which everyone should watch. Hits harder with AI.…
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@conorsen
Conor Sen
on x
It's a good sci-fi read. One thought experiment is that if Jamie Dimon could push an AI button and fire half his company with no impact on profits would he do it? Because to me the answer is clearly no, he's smarter than that. And he's not alone.
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@borrowed_ideas
@borrowed_ideas
on x
I have perhaps an odd reaction to this piece. Amidst most of the AI apocalypse narratives, I consistently feel Homo Sapiens is being underestimated relative to what we have accomplished as a species. We are hardwired to focus on a scenario that may make us increasingly irrelevant
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@cryptocyberia
@cryptocyberia
on x
>AI didn't disappoint Bro, let's get real. We invested trillions because they said it would cure cancer, revolutionize all of science, automate most white collar work, put us on mars, discover immortality, and get me a girlfriend. AI has been a huge disappointment, objectively.
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@deanwball
Dean W. Ball
on x
This is probably the most believable piece of AI scenario modeling, positive or negative, I have ever read. Plenty of contestable assumptions, of course, but undoubtedly worth your time.
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@rhyssullivan
Rhys
on x
Out of every example they could've chosen, they went with DoorDash? The barrier to entry for launching a delivery app is not and has never been software, it's distribution, restaurant adoption, user adoption Who is believing this stuff [image]
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@tysonbrody
Tyson Brody
on x
kind of confused by this piece. interesting stuff on the mechanics of financial contagion and firms unexpectedly vulnerable to AI. but the scenario described is a depression, not a recession? why would white collar flood into the service sector when no one is paying for services?
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@dvasishtha
Dhruv Vasishtha
on x
Excellent pre-mortem that articulates exactly why there is so much anti-AI and anti-data center sentiment. And we as a tech industry need to chart the abundance counter factual. [image]
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@discoplomacy
Sam
on x
Absolutely fascinating piece. So many points I had never given significant thought to before. Wish more finance types took a stab at writing these sort of notes publicly and provocatively. [image]
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@tedunderwood.com
Ted Underwood
on bluesky
It had occurred to people before, but this time the announcement is coinciding with compelling dystopian fiction: www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic
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@mims
Christopher Mims
on bluesky
this essay has been going around and lemme just say it's an amazing piece of hard science fiction — like, it almost redefines the genre into something that includes financial projection — but that's all it is — we are in an era when AI panic porn is widespread and less than hel…
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@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo
on bluesky
Alongside the Claude Code + vibe coding kills SaaS panic on Wall Street, a financial research firm just published a viral post about a hypothetical future where AI agents trigger mass white-collar unemployment. — I'm not worried: there isn't enough data center capacity for that…
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@sadbusdriver
Joe Fish
on bluesky
Tbh this article is a good reason why econ needs models. The article is basically a very Marx-coded macro model where increasing amounts of labor-replacing capital kills off aggregate demand and causes mass unemployment. Okay, but a lot of assumptions go into that! — www.citr…
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@carlquintanilla
Carl Quintanilla
on bluesky
“.. It should have been clear all along that a single GPU cluster in North Dakota generating the output previously attributed to 10,000 white-collar workers in midtown Manhattan is more economic pandemic than economic panacea.” — #GhostGDP 👻 — www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gi…
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@sky.skymarchini.net
Sky Marchini
on bluesky
so citrini wrote this article arguing that if ai succeeds it'll crush the market and people are MAD AS HELL about it www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic
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@dmnd.me
Jeremy Diamond
on bluesky
I know this is framed as a thought experiment and not a prediction, but this is simply not descriptive of what people value in these categories. — www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic [embedded post]
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@akshatrathi
Akshat Rathi
on bluesky
Sci-fi now moves markets?? Here is the AI report that led to tumbling of DoorDash and Amex stocks. www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic [image]
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@cameron.stream
Cameron
on bluesky
AI is really going to fuck up markets in ways we probably can't imagine. These folks wrote a decent speculative piece about it. — www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic
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@bill-of-lefts
@bill-of-lefts
on bluesky
not endorsing the details of this scenario, but this is sort of what I was imagining — www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic [embedded post]
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@econberger
Guy Berger
on bluesky
As always w/ @citrini.bsky.social an interesting read but I'm not sure it's internally consistent. — Main questions that came to mind: — 1/ Agent owners: what are they doing with the money they're making? Why isn't THAT fueling employment, GDP ? stock prices? — www.citrini…
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r/singularity
r
on reddit
THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS
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r/BetterOffline
r
on reddit
New article going viral among AI bros on Twitter: THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS
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r/neoliberal
r
on reddit
The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis
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r/slatestarcodex
r
on reddit
The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis