This piece cuts through the simplistic “jobs apocalypse” headlines and highlights a more nuanced reality that AI isn’t just eliminating roles but reshaping how skills are developed, careers are built, and people find meaning in work. It’s a helpful reminder that our collective choices now regarding policy, training, and incentives will determine whether AI augments human potential or hollow out the foundations of fulfilling labor. Joseph Weizenbaum (AI pioneer) was very adamant that technological choices can quickly become unintended legacy and you illustrate that very well.
Your piece surfaces the gap between the headlines about 'AI job collapse' and the quieter shifts inside organizations. I'm working on an 'AI posture' lens (extraction vs creation vs sense-making). Would love your take: what does a genuinely humane organizational posture to AI look like?
The 13% decline in early-career roles is concerning and your point about the apprenticeship model is important. What I notice from building with AI agents daily is that the skills that compound are different now. It's less about writing code and more about decomposing problems, orchestrating agents, and evaluating output quality. The question is whether organizations can create new on-ramps for these skills. The gap between power users and everyone else isn't just productivity, it's experiential. Hard to learn agent orchestration if you've never seen it: https://thoughts.jock.pl/p/ai-bubble-living-inside
In my opinion, we’re not seeing a jobs apocalypse. It looks more like a compound effect of post-COVID hiring correction and deliberate retooling as companies position themselves for AI-augmented work.
The decline in early-career roles might be a symptom of that shift. Cutting junior roles is an easy way to reallocate budget while companies figure out how current employees can become more productive with AI.
What comes next will be determined by company leadership. My guess is many will realize they’ve cut too deep, and 2026 will bring a hiring rebound to fill the gaps they created.
![[ Center for Humane Technology ]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!uhgK!,w_120,h_120,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5f9f5ef8-865a-4eb3-b23e-c8dfdc8401d2_518x518.png)
This piece cuts through the simplistic “jobs apocalypse” headlines and highlights a more nuanced reality that AI isn’t just eliminating roles but reshaping how skills are developed, careers are built, and people find meaning in work. It’s a helpful reminder that our collective choices now regarding policy, training, and incentives will determine whether AI augments human potential or hollow out the foundations of fulfilling labor. Joseph Weizenbaum (AI pioneer) was very adamant that technological choices can quickly become unintended legacy and you illustrate that very well.
Your piece surfaces the gap between the headlines about 'AI job collapse' and the quieter shifts inside organizations. I'm working on an 'AI posture' lens (extraction vs creation vs sense-making). Would love your take: what does a genuinely humane organizational posture to AI look like?
The 13% decline in early-career roles is concerning and your point about the apprenticeship model is important. What I notice from building with AI agents daily is that the skills that compound are different now. It's less about writing code and more about decomposing problems, orchestrating agents, and evaluating output quality. The question is whether organizations can create new on-ramps for these skills. The gap between power users and everyone else isn't just productivity, it's experiential. Hard to learn agent orchestration if you've never seen it: https://thoughts.jock.pl/p/ai-bubble-living-inside
AI doesn’t eliminate work. It eliminates tasks.
In my opinion, we’re not seeing a jobs apocalypse. It looks more like a compound effect of post-COVID hiring correction and deliberate retooling as companies position themselves for AI-augmented work.
The decline in early-career roles might be a symptom of that shift. Cutting junior roles is an easy way to reallocate budget while companies figure out how current employees can become more productive with AI.
What comes next will be determined by company leadership. My guess is many will realize they’ve cut too deep, and 2026 will bring a hiring rebound to fill the gaps they created.