Is this fear keeping you safe?
Or is it the kind of fear that’s preventing you from being your best?
Learn to differentiate between the two.
Category / fear
AI isn’t taking your job
…at least not yet.
I use AI almost every day to assist with work and learn new topics (as part of my job) that I’m unfamiliar with. I read diligently to stay up-to-date on the latest developments, so I can learn how to use it more effectively.
AI will become (if it hasn’t already), and continue to be, a large portion of all of our lives.
However, we’re receiving a significant amount of misinformation about what’s happening and the effects it’s having on workers. Some of it is outright deception, while some is simply lazy reporting.
First, the deception.
The CEOs of these massive tech companies (e.g., Dario Amodei, Sam Altman) are brilliant business people who’ve created mind-boggling products. But they’re hemorrhaging cash trying to make their programs more powerful…
And after years of unbelievable growth and progress, they’re failing. The scaling law on which they used to project LLM growth is slowing down, and the improvements are now incremental, rather than exponential.
This is a serious financial problem for them. They need to keep their current investors engaged, and they need new investors to infuse them with additional capital. So what do they do?
They go on cable news shows or podcasts and claim that their AI software will replace all entry-level workers (10-20% of the workforce) within a matter of months.1 It just isn’t true.
But you wouldn’t know that from the news you’re consuming. They’ve bought into this story hook, line, and sinker.
Which brings me to my accusation of lazy reporting. Headlines like “Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs” and “AI is Replacing 10 million Workers” (I made that one up) are attention-grabbing… But untrue.
These media companies, like the AI companies they write about, need to make money. They do that by getting as many eyes on their work as possible. And the best way to do that is to scare people into giving them attention… Even if the claims are untrue or misleading.
To paraphrase Ryan Holiday, who warned us about this years ago: “Trust them… They’re lying.”
It is true that computer science graduates are having a much harder time finding jobs at the moment. And it’s true that there have been massive layoffs in the tech sector.
It’s also true that the companies doing these layoffs are investing more of their money and efforts in AI. But AI is not the cause of this, nor is it replacing those who’ve been laid off.
Here’s what’s actually happening:
During the pandemic, these tech companies went on a massive hiring spree—they simply overhired. Now they’re bloated, and the quickest way to reduce the bloat and (temporarily) increase shareholder value is to shed programmers left and right.
At the same time, the tech sector itself is contracting, which means there are fewer jobs for all the newly minted computer science graduates.
This has historical precedence. The same thing happened in 2008 during the financial crisis. And it happened before that during the dot-com bust at the turn of the century.
The number of people entering the computer science field fluctuates in response to the economy. There’s a tech boom, prompting more people to enter the field. Then the sector contracts, and all those people get laid off, which in turn reduces the number of people entering the field.
Until the next boom.
Contrary to what many journalists have written, these people aren’t being replaced by AI. They’re simply being let go because companies overhired during the pandemic or because the companies are refocusing on AI.
However, that refocus, coupled with layoffs and fewer job openings, has led them to conflate the two, concluding that these computer science graduates are being replaced by AI.
This simply isn’t true. That may happen in the 2030s, but it’s not happening right now.
I’ve been guilty of buying into this hysteria too, as you can see in my piece on job hunting in 2025. And I’m here to tell you I was wrong in what I wrote about AI replacing workers in that piece.
All that to say this: Read AI journalism with a healthy dose of skepticism right now. And take any apocalyptic predictions with a grain of salt.
- Dario Amodei actually said this in an interview with Anderson Cooper and, ironically, claimed to be worried about it… Which begs the question: if you’re worried about it, why do you continue to do it?
Why doesn’t he just stop if it actually worries him? It’s his company. ↩︎
Why do we diminish our work?
An acquaintance of mine in Seth Godin’s Purple Space Community announced a new project. It was one I never would have thought of, yet still found fascinating and potentially life-changing for some people.
But he ended his announcement by saying, “I know it’s not significant or anything…”
Why do we do that? Why, when we embark on a new journey or start something new, do we diminish it from the outset?
Because we’re afraid it might not work.
Because we don’t want to feel a sense of letdown.
Because we equate “significance” with the size of the impact, not the impact itself.
Significance: the quality of being worthy of attention; importance.
Nowhere in that definition does it say anything about being worthy of attention to a large number of people. It just says “worthy of attention.” And if it’s worthy of attention to a few people, that makes it significant to those people!
I shared with him the Tale of the Starfish:
A young girl was walking along a beach where thousands of starfish had washed up during a storm. When she came to a starfish, she picked it up and threw it back into the ocean.
A man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? You can’t save them all. You can’t begin to make a difference!”
The girl picked up another starfish and hurled it into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied, “Well, I made a difference for that one!”
Fear keeps the majority out of power
It only takes one person for something evil to occur. For example, one of the reasons many authoritarian countries haven’t changed their regime already is that the vast majority of people live in fear of the handful of people who would commit evil on behalf of the leaders.
This is a question of power. If every single person in the country realized that they only have power because they can get other people to do bad things, the leaders would no longer be in power.
The flipside of that is that it only requires one person being willing to harm or kill another for these people to be able to keep their power.
It’s contagious—one person begets another person willing to commit harm (or too scared to refuse). Pretty soon, a tiny minority of people grows who are willing to commit evil to keep this one person in power.
Because not everyone says no, the minority rules, and the majority seems powerless. As such, the people who are in the majority must seemingly be willing to face death at the hands of the minority to effect change.
Courage comes first
All other virtues depend on courage in their execution.
To some extent, all worthwhile endeavors require going against the status quo or doing something difficult. This requires bravery.
Being a courageous politician sometimes means opposing a tyrannical leader, even if that figure has mass appeal. But doing the right thing requires courage in this case.
Acting justly (i.e., doing the right thing) is often unpopular. (How depressing!)
Persisting in the face of opposition requires courage.
Doing the right thing often requires someone “going first,’ also known as leading! You must be courageous to lead, as you must be willing to fail.
Start with one
One person. Just help one person with whatever skill you have, whatever problem she has.
This one act doesn’t have to dictate the entire course of your life, business, career, or whatever else you’re worried about.
Nor do you have to plan everything perfectly from the start. No need to create a business plan, figure out all the courses and certifications you need to take, or get an accountant on retainer. At least not right now.
The important thing is to start. Help this one person in front of you.
If it goes well, then you can decide whether to help another in the same way. Or not.
One decision doesn’t have to dictate every other decision that follows.
Fear = excitement
The physiological reactions we experience when we’re afraid (racing pulse, sweaty palms, lightheadedness) are the same as those we feel when we’re excited.
Fear, therefore, can be reframed as a form of excitement.
How might you act differently if you told yourself you were excited about this new possibility rather than frightened by it?
H/t to Peter Shepherd and Jen Waldman for this idea.
Generosity is the antidote to fear
Instead of focusing on how risky something feels, focus instead on how generous you’re being.
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Do you actually need more information?
…or do you simply need to act on the information you already have?
Often, research is a symptom of fear. After a certain point, gathering more data is just procrastination.
It’s worth asking this question when you’re feeling anxious to start something new.
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Drowning it out
Maybe that’s what it’s for.
The endless hours of “Seinfeld” reruns…
The mindless doom scrolling on Instagram.
There’s something inside you that wants to get out—an idea, a business, a work of art. And it’s just too difficult to get started.
Not difficult — terrifying.
So you choose to drown it out.
Is that fair to the rest of us?
What’s the first step?
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