Annuit Coeptis: God favours our undertakings.
I think it is a fitting phrase to appear on the Great Seal of the US and maintain pride of place on the one dollar bill, because the country seems to be built on the foundation that no matter what it does, it cannot be wrong. And a lot of the culture seems to be built upon this premise, with it baked into people's identity. No matter what the outcome, it's all good.
That is 4000 people losing their employment in one fell swoop.
“This decision comes from a position of strength. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company. A significantly smaller team using the tools we’re building can do more and do it better.”
_ Jack Dorsey
Last year, the US government had its "added jobs estimate" of 584,000 jobs downgraded to the reality of 181,000 added. That means that yesterday, Block alone reduced the added jobs of 2025 by 2.2%. And I suspect, they were pretty well-paying jobs.
I was reading a Forbes article on the reduction and in it they were saying that the AI blame is not that likely and they went on to then use Klarna as an example, which was relevant in 2024. It has been two years since and the tools have made leaps and bounds since then. And sure, while they might have overestimated how much they can cut back, they will likely be betting that by the time they come across the problems, the tools will have advanced further again. There is no stopping the innovation.
But does that make it right?
Right is obviously a subjective term, but we are entering into a phase of humanity where I think we need to start questioning our human ethics and moral position. I am not talking about religious morality, but about what is "right" for humanity, and whether the direction we are headed is one that we want to keep taking. Because very rapidly, and likely faster than many want to believe, large numbers of people are going to be unemployable, because knowledge work positions are going to be replaced.
This has an enormous knock-on effect, in the same way that the estimate is that if self driving cars were to take over professional driving positions, eight million people would lose their work immediately in the US alone. And then factor in things like office space, and all the cafés and restaurants that survive by serving lunches in the CBDs, or the work healthcare services, or the office cleaning companies, the hotels for business trips - and the impact across all sectors is enormous.
OnlyFans.
The creator economy might seem like a possible move, but it is already crowded and the average amount an OnlyFans creator gets is about 100 dollars a month. And that is heavily skewed by the ones who are getting millions. So good luck to the customer success representative getting traction. And then consider who is paying for subscription to those services and accounts and realise, it is probably a big percentage of the 4000 people who just lost their job at Block. The creator economy relies on people willing to pay, and that money comes from their work. Without a job, they don't subscribe.
And yep. There are other less provocative fields, like plumbing and electrical work, building and massage, but again, these rely on people willing and able to pay for the service. The more people who lose their job to AI, the less people there are to consume other goods and services, which means, a lot of the work for the tradesman disappear also.
I don't believe in a god, but if I imagine what a god observing us might think, I suspect it would be shaking its ethereal head in dismay at our sheer greed and stupidity. I do not think it would "favour our undertakings" by any stretch of my imagination, because we are literally destroying the value we have as humans, along with the conditions we need in order to survive, because some people want to make more money. And it isn't those people's fault, because they are just playing the game as it is designed to be played.
I have very little faith in humanity to course correct, because to do so requires far to much disruption to our conditioned behaviours. It would feel unnatural now to put humanity before profits, because it has been so incredibly long since we have behaved as humans. Instead, we act on the algorithmic patterns we have been conditioned to act upon, like robots.
Except we aren't very good robots, so we are easily replaced by real robots.
Oh well. Life ends for us all the same.
Taraz
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