Original Title: Contra Citrini7
Original Author: John Loeber, Researcher
Original Translator: Ismay, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: The AI apocalypse prophecy filled with cyberpunk elements in Citrini7 has sparked widespread discussion online, but this article presents a more pragmatic contrasting perspective. While Citrini saw a digital tsunami swallowing civilization in an instant, the author of this text sees the tenacious resistance of the human bureaucratic system, the deeply flawed existing software ecosystem, and the long-neglected cornerstone of heavy industry. This is a direct confrontation between Silicon Valley fantasies and the harsh realities, reminding us that the singularity may arrive, but it will certainly not happen in a single day.
Below is the original content:
Well-known market commentator Citrini7 recently published an engaging and widely circulated AI disaster novel. Although he admits that the probability of some scenarios occurring is extremely low, as someone who has witnessed multiple predictions of economic collapse, I want to challenge his views and present a more certain and optimistic future.
Never Underestimate "Institutional Inertia"
In 2007, people believed that, amidst the backdrop of "peak oil," the geopolitical status of the United States had come to an end; in 2008, people felt that the dollar system was on the brink of collapse; in 2014, everyone thought AMD and NVIDIA had run out of luck. Then ChatGPT emerged, and people thought about Google’s decline… yet each time, institutions with deep inertia proved to be far more resilient than observers could imagine.
When Citrini discusses fears of institutional turnover and rapid workforce replacements, he writes: "Even those areas we believe are maintained by personal relationships appear fragile. For example, in the real estate industry, buyers have tolerated 5%-6% commissions for decades because of information asymmetries between brokers and consumers..."
At this point, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. People have been shouting for the "death of real estate agents" for 20 years! This doesn’t require any superintelligence; having Zillow, Redfin, or Opendoor is sufficient. But this example precisely demonstrates the opposite point from Citrini’s: despite the fact that this workforce appears outdated in the eyes of most, due to market inertia and regulatory capture, the viability of real estate agents is far more robust than anyone predicted ten years ago.
A few months ago, I just bought a house. The transaction process forced us to hire an agent, justified by grand reasons. My buyer's agent made about $50,000 on this deal, while the actual work he did—filling out forms and coordinating multiple parties—added up to about 10 hours, which I could have easily managed myself. This market will ultimately move toward efficiency and fair pricing for labor, but it requires a long process.
I am well-versed in the ways of inertia and change management: I founded and sold a company whose core business was transitioning insurance brokerage firms from "manual service" to "software-driven." The iron rule I learned is that human societies in the real world are incredibly complex, and anything takes far longer than you imagine—even if you have accounted for this iron rule. This does not mean that the world will not undergo dramatic changes, but rather that change will be more gradual, giving us time to respond and adjust.
The Software Industry Has "Unlimited Demand" for Labor
Recently, the software sector has performed poorly due to investors’ concerns that backend systems of companies like Monday, Salesforce, and Asana lack moats and are easily replicable. Citrini and others believe that AI programming signals the end of SaaS companies: first, products become homogenized and zero-profit, and second, jobs disappear.
But everyone overlooks one point: the current software products are simply terrible.
I am qualified to say this because I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Salesforce and Monday. Indeed, AI may allow competitors to replicate these products, but more importantly, AI will enable competitors to create better products. It’s not surprising that stock prices are falling: an industry that relies on long-term bundling, lacks competitiveness, and is filled with poor legacy companies is finally about to see competition.
From a broader perspective, it is an undeniable fact that almost all existing software is garbage. Every tool I pay for is riddled with bugs; some software is so bad that I can’t even pay for it (I have been unable to use Citibank’s online banking for wire transfers for the past three years); most web applications cannot even manage compatibility with mobile and desktop; not a single product fully achieves the features you want. Silicon Valley darlings like Stripe and Linear have gained a large following simply because they are not as infuriatingly difficult to use as their competitors. If you ask an experienced engineer, "Show me a truly perfect piece of software," you will only receive prolonged silence and confused stares in response.
There lies a profound truth: even if we reach the "software singularity," the demand for human labor in software remains nearly unlimited. It is well-known that the last few percentage points of perfection require the most work. By this standard, almost every software product has at least 100 times more room for complexity and functionality before reaching demand saturation.
I think that those who assert the imminent demise of the software industry largely lack the intuition for software development. The software industry has existed for 50 years, and although there has been tremendous progress, it will always be in a state of "inadequacy." As a programmer in 2020, my productivity equals that of hundreds in 1970, an incredible leverage, but there is still vast room for optimization. People underestimate the "Jevons Paradox": improvements in efficiency often lead to explosive growth in total demand.
This does not mean that software engineering is an unassailable iron rice bowl, but the industry's capacity and inertia to absorb labor far exceed expectations, and the saturation process will be very slow, allowing us to cope comfortably.
The Redemption of "Reindustrialization"
Of course, workforce transitions will inevitably occur, as in the driving sector. As Citrini said, many white-collar jobs will experience upheaval. For positions like real estate agents, which have long lost substantive value and are merely retaining money through inertia, AI could be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
But our lifeline lies in the near-infinite potential and demand for reindustrialization in the United States. You might have heard of "reshoring," but it goes far beyond that. We have essentially lost the ability to manufacture the core components of modern life: batteries, motors, small semiconductors—the entire power industry chain relies almost entirely on overseas production. What if military conflicts occur? Even worse, did you know that China produces 90% of the world’s synthetic ammonia? Once supply is cut off, we can’t even make fertilizer and will only be left to starve.
As long as you turn your gaze toward the physical world, you will find endless job opportunities, which are the infrastructure projects benefiting the country and creating employment, and they can gain bipartisan political support.
We have already seen the economic and political winds shifting in this direction—discussing reshoring, deep tech, and "American vitality." My prediction is that when AI impacts white-collar workers, the path of least political resistance will be to fund large-scale reindustrialization, absorbing labor through "massive employment projects." Fortunately, there is no "singularity" in the physical world; it is constrained by friction.
We will rebuild bridges and roads. People will find that witnessing tangible results from labor is far more rewarding than spinning around in a digital abstract world. That senior product manager at Salesforce who lost his $180,000 annual salary may find new work at "California's desalination plant," ending a drought that has lasted 25 years. These facilities not only need to be built, but they also need to pursue perfection and require long-term maintenance. As long as we are willing, the "Jevons Paradox" applies equally to the physical world.
Towards Abundance
The endpoint of massive industrial engineering is abundance. The United States will regain self-sufficiency and achieve large-scale, low-cost production. Surpassing material scarcity is key: in the long term, if we truly lose most white-collar jobs due to AI, we must be able to maintain a high quality of life for the public. And since AI will drive profit margins to zero, consumer goods will become extremely cheap, which will automatically help achieve that goal.
My point is that different sectors of the economy will "take off" at different speeds, and transformations in almost all fields will be slower than Citrini anticipates. To clarify, I am extremely optimistic about AI and foresee a day when my labor may also become obsolete. But this takes time, and time gives us the opportunity to devise good strategies.
In this regard, preventing the market collapse imagined by Citrini is not actually difficult. The performance of the U.S. government during the pandemic demonstrated its proactive and decisive response to crises. When needed, large-scale stimulus policies will intervene quickly. Although acknowledging their inefficiency makes me somewhat displeased, that’s not the point. The focus is on ensuring material prosperity in people's lives—a universal welfare that can bestow legitimacy to the state and sustain the social contract, rather than clinging to outdated accounting metrics or economic dogmas.
If we can remain sharp and responsive during this slow but certain technological transformation, we will eventually emerge unscathed.
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