Thought Experiment Paints Grim 2028 AI Economy Meltdown
Citrini Research imagines a 2028 scenario where AI success paradoxically triggers economic collapse and mass unemployment.
What happens when AI works too well? Citrini Research explored that question in a provocative thought experiment projecting a "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" — a scenario where artificial intelligence exceeds every expectation and the economy craters anyway.
The hypothetical future isn't pretty. The S&P drops. Unemployment surges. The broader economy fails. Not because AI disappointed, but precisely because it delivered.
The exercise frames itself as financial history written from the future, asking readers to follow current AI bullishness to its logical extreme. If machines can do everything better and cheaper, what happens to the humans who used to get paid to do those things?
It's a thought exercise, not a prediction. But it highlights a tension the tech industry mostly ignores: runaway AI capability and economic prosperity might not be the same thing.