Bureaucracy, Cuts, Flat, Data Center, Efficiencies, Growth, Productivity, Faster, Impact, Impinge, Innovation, Prepared, Relieved, Reorganizing, Shrunk, Smashing, Strategic, Transform, Trendsetter, Turmoil, Upheaval.
These words are all used in a recent Washington Post article that is likely the analysis every working person needs to read. These summarize the essence of 2025 as we head into the homestretch and begin to focus on our future in 2026.
The implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been on our minds. Certainly, some are thinking of it more than others. If you are not considering how it will impact you, you should reconsider. I am not saying your sky is falling, but ask yourself--what if it does?
The Post authors focus us on an inversion occurring in the workplace of today with implications for tomorrow. Viewed in retrospect, as we so often do, 2025 will be remembered for various things. A primary point, however, will be regression.
No, not the "recession" that has been a persistent threat in the news. That economic potential is a perennial concern, as is the marketplace friction between money supply and inflation. Undoubtedly, 2025 will be remembered for economics, both micro and macro.
But let us consider the term "regression" instead. The "trend or shift toward a lower or less perfect state." By "less perfect" we could mean less desirable, a subjectivity, less stable, an objectivity, or something in between. In my context here, I suggest it as a valid description for both micro desirability and macro stability.
The Post suggests that the tech industry is a proverbial "canary in a coal mine." The impacts of AI are being felt there now, and the suggestion is that those ripples will soon cross more ponds as implications spread and acceptance grows.
Like the inversion suggested by the financial gurus, see Even the Experts (November 2025), the tech experts perceive an incongruity that is noteworthy. Big expansion, innovation, and paradigm change have often been accompanied by job growth, real estate demand, and similar practical demands.
That expectation is easy to see. New requires adaptation and adjustment. Those require more hands on deck to accommodate and implement. Innovation means increased labor demand and facilities in which to house them.
Not so fast.
The tech industry is thriving. The whole of Silicon Valley is said to be in a "boom," with "billions of dollars (pouring) into developing technology." Companies are achieving market capitalizations that use the word "trillion," and the volume of investment is incredible.
Construction is proceeding at an incredible pace, but not for office space. The construction is focused on rooms to house more computers, bigger computers, more powerful computers. The term "data center" has evolved in 2025 from a sidenote to a buzzword.
The regression is from a state of stable and ready employment for the tech-abled to one of doubt and uncertainty. See Did they WARN You? (November 2025). I suggested years ago that technology would change the world. See Another AI Invasion, Meritocracy? (January 2017), but see Kiosks and Expectations (September 2024) and the references there.
Despite the technology boom that persists in Silicon Valley and beyond, there has been a parade of layoffs, downsizing, and efficiency. The authors note 2025's 17% increase in "job cuts so far (117,000) in the tech sector." While that sounds troubling, it turns out the losses are "much steeper" in California (Silicon Valley).
Artificial Intelligence is enhancing worker productivity. The innovation of this tool is actually diminishing the value of its creators. With each cycle of improvement, the tool becomes that much more efficient at both productivity and at crafting further innovation of the tools.
The authors, and those they cite, see this as a harbinger of the future. They see the impact of AI creating efficiencies in general while it also enhances and improves itself. They suggest that this "could be a signal of how AI is going to impinge on other sectors."
The pundits say that these changes are illustrated in the tech sector. They note that sector is "in turmoil right now," and suggest that turmoil will spread through other sectors as the wave of innovation, efficiency, and efficacy spread to and through the daily tasks of workers in various vocations.
There will be job losses.
I liken the AI boom to the internal combustion engine. Yes, that dastardly device that so many pearl-clutchers decry and yet depend upon daily. Certainly, that device was industrial, but its impact was much broader.
In 1892, John Froelich built a gas "engine that could be driven backwards and forwards." That year, 43% of Americans worked on farms. The advent of that engine, and the resulting "tractor" rapidly diminished the volume of labor needed to farm. The result was devastating to the farm hand market. By 1930, that 43% was cut by more than half to 21%.
Simultaneously, the same concept of engines and mechanization brought automobiles, roads, enhanced tourism, and commerce. Those innovations brought new vocations, interests, and economic (r)evolution. That one disruptive and radical idea spurred both economic ruin (farm hands) and massive expansion.
AI will be no different. There will be winners and losers. There will be innovations that we have yet to dream of, and occupations that will go the way of the buggy whip. That change will be difficult, involve pain (growing and contracting), and will bring unexpected benefits and burdens.
Nonetheless, your grandparents survived change, just as did their grandparents. The change will produce change. The rate will ebb and flow, but the change itself will be inevitable, inexorable, and unpredictable. Yes, all those buzzwords at the top bear your consideration.
