How are you going to be using AI in 18 months? What is going to happen with all these data center buildouts? What about the economy? What about mass layoffs? In this post —

editor’s note: after completing the first question I realized answering all of these questions in a single blog post will be 10,000 words and will take me hours and hours SO, instead of doing them all in one we’re making this a series and we’ll answer one question each article for the next like … 4-6 articles. Thank you for your understanding

— we will predict the answer to ALL THOSE QUESTIONS, and explain the reasoning behind those predictions. And I’m going to personally guarantee that at least half of these predictions will be correct (I mean, statistically speaking they have to be) or your money back. So let’s get to it!

Will AI cause mass layoffs?

Short Answer: No*
*Although mass layoffs will be blamed on AI, it will not be the actual cause

Why: First off, we’re already in the timeline where AI was supposed to be causing mass layoffs according to both Dario Amodei and Sam Altman (leaders of Anthropic and OpenAI, respectively). In fact, this claim largely comes from these two and others like them — people who stand to benefit from AI seeming inevitable (maybe we really shouldn’t listen to sales people). And according to both of them a significant portion of white collar jobs should’ve been automated already, leading to massive unemployment (which currently stands at roughly 4.3%).

So … they were wrong about that.

In recent years they have changed their messaging for a couple reasons. One, the mass layoffs they promised haven’t appeared. And two (probably more importantly), everyone hates this idea and AI is incredibly unpopular because of it. So they (finally) read the room and changed their tune.

But there’s another reason AI won’t cause mass layoffs besides “they said it would already and it hasn’t.” It’s because the people selling AI fundamentally misunderstand how jobs work.

People who believe AI will cause mass layoffs view work as a “collection of tasks” — discrete “if-then” relationships that can be automated one by one. The thinking goes that, once you automate away the tasks, the job goes away as well.

But roles (and people) aren’t a collection of tasks. Think of the people you know who are excellent to work with — people who accomplish a lot. Are they great to work with because they do the most tasks the fastest?

Odds are good that they’re not bad at the tasks themselves. But you probably appreciate them because of something other than how quickly they accomplish tasks. Maybe they have a way with people. Maybe they’re creative. Maybe they just are quick with a joke and make work bearable.

In sports we call these things “intangibles” — things people do that contribute to success that can’t be accounted for with regular stats. A great example of this is Andre Iguodala, who won finals MVP in 2015 with the Warriors. Although Steph Curry had better overall numbers than AI, Iguodala got the award in part because he was valued for his defense on LeBron, and the experience and leadership he brought to the team.

But there is no more ironic example of this principle than Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block, and former CEO of Twitter.

In February of 2026 he laid of 40% of block (4000 people). In a lengthy tweet he laid out his reasoning, which boiled down to … oh man, I hate reading these no-caps business visionary abominations, but here we go:

… we’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we’re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that’s accelerating rapidly.

i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now.

Now, the real reason for these layoffs is probably bloat (as pointed out by other analysts), but even without that the logic seems to be: we can use AI to automate tasks, up to and including entire roles, and we’d just like to do that and have lower headcount. That is the philosophy (if not reality) behind almost all AI related layoffs.

However, this is the same Jack Dorsey that famously loved open offices because he wanted to “… encourage people to stay out in the open because we believe in serendipity — and people walking by each other and teaching new things.”

In other words, Jack was formerly a big believer in “intangibles” — in the idea that people can have significant value outside of the specific “tasks” that they’re assigned. In fact, he built an entire physical office and organizational culture around that very idea.

I am firmly in the camp of past Jack, not present Jack. In fact, my career is an example of this. I’ve always privately had the goal to “automate myself out of a job.” When I was a SharePoint engineer we were always trying to find ways of accomplishing the work faster and easier. For example, we trained the helpdesk on how to use SharePoint instead of handling every ticket directly — which lead to a 60% decrease in tickets escalated to us. Even with the time spent training the helpdesk that freed up a lot of hours.

We also automated major workflows using powershell scripts (before automation was synonymous with AI) and went so far as to create custom scripts that would automate moving sites between development lanes and performing upgrades (tasks that previously took hours of overnight work).

Through all of that we continuously found ourselves with MORE to do, not less. And that’s because a good role isn’t simply a collection of tasks — it’s a business outcome. It’s a piece of the puzzle that is creating value for customers.

Think back to the person you like working with — the person who accomplishes a lot and makes work better. Odds are good they do so much because they help create value for customers, and odds are good that doing so well requires intangibles.

So AI won’t automate the jobs away because, although you can automate tasks, you cannot automate intangibles. Companies that take the plunge, like Block, and perform aspirational layoffs with the hope that AI will make the difference will find that something has gone out of the business. It may roll on for a while, but it will falter and lose ground to other companies that still employ creative people who bring with them the intangibles that really make companies successful.

Finally, I already wrote a blog post about how AI will probably lead to more jobs, not less.