I’m Worried It Might Get Really Bad

I’m starting to worry things might get very bad, very soon.

Not like in a year or two, but maybe in a few months. As in spontaneous recession type of thing. In the US mostly, but perhaps globally.

It sounds irrational to me as well as I think it or type it. But I can’t shake the feeling, so I want to try to write it all down to see how rational it looks on paper.

In no real order, here are the various things I’m stressing about.

I know a ton of really talented people who have recently lost their jobs

These are people who’ve been making over $100-200K in tech or tech-adjacent for over a decade. And they can’t find work. I mean they can barely get interviews.

And when I say a ton, I mean multiple dozen that I either know or I’m one degree separated from. And again, these are not low-skill people. They’re legit professionals that have never in their life had trouble finding or maintaining work.

Tons of business leaders are explicitly telling us that they’re looking to replace human workers with AI

Google has said this. Amazon. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff explicitly stated the company won’t hire any new software engineers in 2025, citing AI-driven productivity gains.

It actually goes much further back, and it’s no-doubt multi-causal. We had the pandemic. We had over-hiring. We’ve heard all the arguments for what it could be.

The data confirm it’s really bad out there

Tech layoffs peaked in 2023 at 200,000 employees, with 2025 at 70,000 through July

549 companies laid off more than 150,000 employees in 2024, and we’re already at 69,672 layoffs in 2025 as of July 31st. The tech unemployment rate sits at 3.4%, but that doesn’t capture the full picture of experienced professionals unable to find work.

AI keeps improving, and companies are stitching together the pieces to make it replace human workers

Hundreds or thousands of companies, and billions of dollars, are being spent on replacing human workers.

Some don’t think this is possible, but they think we need to invent some super smart model that’s better than anything we’ve ever seen.

We don’t need that. What we need is scaffolding and piping that connects the dots and brings the right context together in the right way to solve problem x or y.

This is not as difficult as it seems, and I already have a ton of the precursors of this working, and I’m just one person. Now imagine billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people working on it.

Salesforce says AI bots now do 50% of the company’s work. They’re pushing what they call a “digital workforce” where AI agents handle customer service, sales, and even coding tasks. Microsoft reports that 30% of software coding work is already done by AI. These aren’t future promises – this is happening right now.

And the prize they’re chasing is worth the cost, because it means saving millions upon millions in hiring costs, payroll, health insurance, and all manner of employee-related complications in every business everywhere.

Getting rid of human work forces is a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity for the companies that get part of that pie. And they’re spending on the R&D accordingly.

Most workers just check in and check out, and don’t put in that much effort

There’s a frequent counter-argument to the AI taking human jobs that goes something like this:

Yeah, AI might be able to do the job at a basic level, but humans are dynamic and creative! We can use our innovation and brilliance to do things way better than AI!

This is, of course, true. For some workers. Some of the time. But—by definition—most workers are not exceptional. Most workers, and most work days, are just drudgery. Answering emails. Writing up quarterly plans. Reviewing metrics. Building applications that do something with data.

A very large number of people dread Monday, and that’s not because they show up Monday morning and bring all their creativity and brilliance. It’s because it’s clocking in and clocking out on a job they’d rather not be doing.

These are prime targets for AI replacement. And they are not the fringe. This isn’t the bottom 5% of the workforce. This is the bottom 60-80%!

In other words, my read is that the replacement of jobs by AI isn’t coming for the bottom few percent.

It’s coming for all but the top few percent. Not all at once, of course, that will take years, but I think it’s already started.

The tariffs haven’t even fully hit yet

Then we have the macro situation.

I make decent money and every single day I’m like:

How the fuck did I pay $20 for a burger and a Diet Coke?

And it’s just everything. I use a few different services, eat out a couple of times, and I’ve spent $100 when that would have been like $40 or $50 dollars a few years ago.

Putting me aside, I look around at everyone around me and I’m like, how in the hell is anyone affording this?

And every indication points to prices going even higher as a result of the tariffs. Economists predict tariffs will raise consumer prices by 2.3% in the short-run, equivalent to an average $3,800 loss per household. Morgan Stanley expects inflation to hit 2.5% in 2025, up from their previous forecast. Goldman Sachs projects core inflation could reach 3%. I just don’t know how much more we can take before something snaps.

Multiple small effects can cascade into a massive overall sentiment, which can affect the overall economy

And this is what I’m actually concerned about.

It’s not one of these things. Or two of them. Or 10. It’s the fact that they’re happening at the same time. It’s the fact that I think they can affect and magnify each other and become a thing.

The scenarios I’m actually worried about

1. A massive economic slowdown gets announced
2. A new AI Employee product gets announced that clearly can replace most workers
3. New layoff numbers get announced and it’s hundreds of thousands of people
4. New data shows basically nobody is hiring
5. Enrollment in colleges plummets because there are no jobs to be had after you go into all that debt
6. Inflation jumps massively from the tariffs and/or other causes
7. Homelessness skyrockets because people can’t pay their rent, but now it’s whole families on the streets
8. We start to see unrest and/or riots against “the rich” because there are no jobs, and people are being evicted
9. Crime goes up significantly
10. There is a loud demand for the government to outlaw AI replacement of workers
11. We get pulled into some new military conflict, either with Russia, or Iran, or China
12. The country continues to suffer financially because the world pulls away from the US and moves into the arms of China
13. Thousands more businesses go under because nobody can afford to buy their products or services

Like I said, I don’t think any one of these would be that bad. The problem is several of them are either likely or are already in progress. And that doesn’t even include all the compounding factors above.

I just don’t know what the country does if some significant percentage of our 100 million knowledge workers gets laid off because of AI, uncertainty about the future, or for whatever other combination of reasons.

Summary

I think there are many things happening right now—or that could happen—that could severely impact a population just barely holding on.

1. Everything’s too expensive, and likely to get worse
2. We already have massive layoffs for unknown reasons
3. Billions are being spent on replacing our 100 million knowledge workers with AI
4. We’re already in something of a mental health crisis
5. We’re already primed to fight with each other because we no longer share a common reality

My prediction

I’m worried we might see some kind of extraordinary spike in knowledge worker unemployment in the next 2-18 months, which triggers evictions, worker Visa cancellations, foreclosures, a general blaming/targeting of AI, which closes businesses, gets more people laid off, causes governments to overreact with legislation, all of which culminates in a general nationwide panic.

Again, I’m not quite saying things are going to go bad. I’m saying that these things can combine and multiply each other if they happen at the same time, and create a feeling that’s bigger than the reality.

Which will then be reality.

I think that could then lead to calls for:

• Redistribution of wealth
• A hurried UBI implementation
• A nationwide ban on foreclosures and evictions
• A law saying you can’t use AI employees
• A law saying you can’t fire anyone
• Etc.

Ok, but how confident am I on all this?

I’m not overly confident / worried. Maybe like 60%. Using the CIA levels for predictions, I’d put this one at:

• Virtually Certain: >90%
• Highly Likely: 60-89%
• Even Chance: 40-59% ←
• Unlikely: 10-39%
• Highly Unlikely: <10%

Let’s hope I’m wrong.