America Isn't Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs

(theatlantic.com)

31 points | by helloplanets a day ago ago

26 comments

  • EricBetts a day ago

    > code—really code, not just copy-paste from Stack Overflow—with the precision of a top engineer.

    Having seen the mistakes it still makes in my industry, I can't take as factual the other claims the article makes about what AI does.

  • aurareturn a day ago

    Also The Atlantic:

    Here’s How the AI Crash Happens

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/10/data-centers-...

    OpenAI Is in Trouble

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/12/openai-losing...

    AI will crash. OpenAI is in trouble. But also, AI is going to be so good that America isn't ready for AI at work.

    I keep seeing the same pattern in these mainstream news outlets. They'll write about how there is an AI bubble and it's about to collapse. AI hallucinates too much to be useful. OpenAI is a scam. There is too much debt to build AI. AI isn't intelligent. AI isn't all the smart. When a new breakthrough happens, it becomes AI is about to take most jobs. AI is becoming god-like. AI needs to be stopped.

    • jakobnissen a day ago

      That is because The Atlantic is not a monolithic hive mind, but employs journalists of different persuasions, who each cover their story from their own world view. So what you’re seeing is not The Atlantic being hypocritical, or flip floppy, but them covering the same topic from multiple points of view.

      • aurareturn a day ago

        They do not cover the same story with different views. If they did, they would publish 2 stories that contradict in message simultaneously. They don't do this.

        They won't publish a story that says AI is about to crash and another that says AI is about to make everyone jobless at the same time. They spread it apart.

        Therefore, they want readers to think that they have a united opinion.

        • hshdhdhj4444 a day ago

          According to you the only definition of “covering something with multiple points of view” is if you provide different perspectives in the same time period.

          But really, you’re arguing the semantics of “covering multiple points of view”. Whether your restrictive opinion about that is right or not, you completely ignored the actual substance of what the person you replied to said. That the Atlantic is not a monolith. It employs different people who bring different viewpoints. And they may write different articles with different perspectives and/or conclusions, often completely opposing ones at the same or different times.

          And your final conclusion does not follow from anything you’ve said or any other evidence presented.

          We actually know what publications that try to present a single viewpoint look like. The most famous example of this is the Economist, which as a key part of this ethos refuses to have bylines for their articles. The Atlantic, on the other hand, looks nothing like that. Every article is bylined with details on each author’s bio.

          • aurareturn a day ago

            You’re fooling yourself if you think The Atlantic does not present a united front. They might change that front from time to time when they realize they are wrong.

            They were all bearish in 2025. Now they are bullish.

            Just because they have different authors doesn’t mean they can’t control the narrative. They can easily choose to only publish bearish articles or videos versa.

            • bigbadfeline 16 hours ago

              > They were all bearish in 2025. Now they are bullish.

              There's noting bullish in "America isn't ready". The technical success of AI can absolutely cannibalize it's economic and political feasibility - which is the opposite of bullish.

              Besides, mainstream media's modus operandi has been fixed for along time and the switch in tone is perfectly explainable, but that's not the point here.

    • sometimes_all 7 hours ago

      I saw this pattern a few years ago, with Trump and cryptocurrency.

      Oh, Trump is a joke, on the cusp of crashing out. Then Trump is a danger to society. Cycle as convenient.

      Oh crypto is a joke with no uses. Then crypto is a danger to society. Cycle as convenient.

      None of this stopped Trump being president twice. Nor did it stop Bitcoin shooting up to tens of thousands of dollars. A few years in, I realized that the Atlantic and its ilk are just in the business of publishing articles people will read, or maybe in the business of hyping things up (negative articles seem to just increase the hype, not taint the subject). They don't really seem to change people's opinions, and they certainly don't believe in being consistent.

    • citrin_ru a day ago

      One doesn’t exclude another - stock market will crush even harder if AI will bee too smart - high unemployment will cause demand drop across the board so AI companies will loose most paying customers and will have no chances to recoup investments (even if the chain is long, economy as a whole depends on people paying for goods and services).

      • aurareturn a day ago

        AI becomes so good that it renders mass unemployment won't crash the stock market.

        The stock market does not care if everyone is employed. It only cares if the companies are making more profit.

        • citrin_ru a day ago

          And there will no profit because there will be no customers.

          • bigbadfeline 16 hours ago

            Some people are surprised to hear that, apparently for them profit is something that grows on trees, or somewhere... It's amusing to read their starry-eyed projections although I'm pretty sure the naked truth is quite ugly.

            • aurareturn 7 hours ago

              Profit doesn’t care about unemployment, unfortunately.

    • FloorEgg a day ago

      It's because they optimize for attention over truth.

  • myhf a day ago

    LLM-generated blogslop is getting published in The Atlantic now?

  • DeathArrow a day ago

    Using AI to generate articles lamenting about AI.

  • dkobia a day ago

    AI Slop or not, these doomer articles have more than a grain of truth and you as a knowledge worker knows “Something is happening”.

  • SilverElfin a day ago

    I generally agree with the article. We can debate timing, but whether it is 1 year away or 10 years away, a major rise in employment is not something America is prepared for. No politicians even talk about this threat seriously, let alone come up with solutions for it. But in a world of higher automation and reduced need for labor, the only practical solution is to redistribute wealth and power in the country. Otherwise, those who enter this new era with wealth or power will be in a permanent ruling class while others suffer.