AI isn’t killing jobs. It’s killing excuses.
by Kaloian Parchev
Citadel Securities published a macro brief arguing AI displacement fears are running far ahead of actual adoption data — the St. Louis Fed shows no inflection in daily AI use at work. Meanwhile, Block’s 4,000-person layoff became the poster child for AI-justified cuts, EE Times declared software engineering officially commoditized, and Chinese workers described the AI upskilling frenzy as a survival game. Across the Atlantic, Volkswagen began talks to convert a car plant into Iron Dome missile defence production. The $650 billion Big Tech capex wave rolls on, and oil held above $90 as the Iran war entered its fourth week.
Three reports landed this week that, read together, tell the same story from different angles. Citadel Securities published macro data showing AI adoption at work is following a normal S-curve — not the exponential one the displacement narrative requires. EE Times mapped software engineering’s journey from craft to commodity, a pattern identical to sewing machines in the 1860s and CNC machining in the 1980s. And Rest of World profiled Chinese workers whose AI anxiety has become so intense they describe it as playing Squid Game.
The common thread: fear is moving faster than the technology. Block cut 4,000 employees in February, explicitly crediting AI. But Block had tripled its headcount since 2019 — from 3,835 to over 10,000 — during the pandemic hiring spree. A Forrester report noted that many so-called AI layoffs are financially driven restructurings dressed in technological language.
The data backs this up. The St. Louis Fed’s Real Time Population Survey shows daily AI use at work is flat — no inflection. Software job postings for engineers are actually rising, up 11% year-over-year. Entry-level roles are shrinking, yes — down 35% since 2023 — but that is commoditization of the bottom rung, not annihilation of the field.
AI didn’t start the layoffs. It gave them a narrative the market would reward.
The real displacement risk is not technological but psychological. In China, 85% of surveyed workers worry AI will affect their employment. Companies are adding AI proficiency to performance reviews. The result is a workforce optimizing for the appearance of AI adoption rather than its substance. Keynes predicted a 15-hour work week by now. Instead, we got a 60-hour anxiety week about whether the machines will work the other 45.
EU DEFENCE SPENDING TRAJECTORY
Total EU member state defence expenditure, 2021–2025E (€ billions, constant 2024 prices)
Source: European Defence Agency via EU Council · Figures in constant 2024 prices
BIG FIVE HYPERSCALER CAPEX: 2024 vs 2026E
Capital expenditure, $ billions — Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle
Source: Bloomberg, Futurum Group, company earnings guidance · Feb 2026
That’s how much the Big Five hyperscalers plan to spend on infrastructure in 2026 — nearly doubling last year. Roughly 75% of it is AI-related. For context, this exceeds the GDP of countries like Sweden or Poland. The machines are definitely getting built. Whether the revenue follows is 2027’s question.
Europe is quietly transforming. This week, Volkswagen — a company synonymous with civilian manufacturing for eight decades — entered talks to retool its Osnabrück plant for Iron Dome missile defence components. Not electric vehicles. Not autonomous driving. Missile launchers. The symbolism is hard to overstate: Germany’s largest carmaker, born from wartime production, may return to it. When car factories become defence plants, the geopolitical shift is no longer a policy document. It’s a production timeline.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported this alongside a broader pattern: EU defence spending has nearly doubled since 2021, Germany’s 2026 military budget hit €82.7 billion, and the ReArm Europe plan targets €800 billion in additional spending by the decade’s end. Poland now spends 4.5% of GDP on defence — more than the US as a share. The last time Europe armed itself at this pace, the Berlin Wall was still standing. The difference this time: the industrial base being repurposed was built for peacetime consumer goods, and the workers who assembled T-Roc convertibles may soon be building the trucks that carry interceptor missiles.
This was said in 2009 about a different set of anxieties. It applies now more than ever. The AI displacement debate is, at its core, a mismatch between the speed at which technology changes capability and the speed at which institutions change behaviour. The emotions haven’t upgraded either.
Audit your own AI usage honestly. How many of the AI tools you’ve signed up for in the past 6 months do you actually use daily? If the answer is fewer than two, you’re part of the S-curve Citadel described — adopted but not yet intensive. That gap between installed and integrated is where the real opportunity lives.
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