"Plenty happens and none of it requires you"

This essay by Owen McGrann about his “dead economy theory” is the best doomer take on the AI debate I’ve read yet. What Owen does, which I’m not seeing elsewhere, is remove AGI / ASI as a prerequisite for doom. Owen thinks we’re headed there regardless, because the tech industry depends on it:

As we’re getting excited about discovering how to use claude.md files in Cowork, the industry is pitching a different reality. Every investor presentation of an AI agent “doing the work of ten analysts” is telling you the same thing: the product is labor replacement.