So, a research firm publishes a fictional memo from the future predicting an AI apocalypse, and the market promptly freaks out. Software stocks tank, private equity gets hammered, and suddenly everyone's wondering if the Roaring 2020s are about to turn into a economic horror story.
Enter Ed Yardeni, the veteran Wall Street strategist, who basically looked at the panic and said, "Hold on a second."
This week, Citrini Research dropped a provocative piece of fiction titled "The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis." It wasn't a forecast, per se, but a thought experiment. The premise was deceptively simple: what if the AI bulls are right, and that's the problem?
In Citrini's scenario, AI agents rapidly replace white-collar workers. Companies cut payroll, funnel the savings into more AI computing power, improve their margins, and then... cut more workers. The firm called this a "negative feedback loop with no natural brake."
Productivity would surge. Corporate profits would initially expand. The stock market would rally. But then, household income—especially from the high-earning professionals who drive a lot of spending—would weaken. Consumer demand would soften. Software companies would face pricing pressure. Eventually, the fictional 2028 memo describes unemployment above 10% and the S&P 500 down nearly 40% from its highs.
The market listened. On Monday, the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) fell nearly 5%. Shares of private-equity giants, seen as collateral damage if software valuations crumble, got hit even harder. Ares Management (ARES), Blackstone (BX), and KKR (KKR) dropped between 6% and 9%.
Yardeni isn't buying the doomsday narrative. In a note published Tuesday, he acknowledged the market has been flirting with the idea of AI as a "Frankenstein monster," but he flatly rejected the extinction storyline.
"We continue to believe that AI is augmenting workers' productivity rather than making them extinct," Yardeni wrote.
He made a key philosophical distinction: AI is "artificial but not intelligent" in the human sense. The models can produce sophisticated-sounding outputs, but they don't truly understand meaning. In his view, that's a critical reason AI won't rapidly replace the bulk of complex white-collar work.
"The good news is that bullish sentiment must be dropping rapidly, as the AI story has morphed from a Roaring 2020s productivity booster to an existential threat to our way of life," he added, hinting that excessive pessimism might itself be a contrarian buy signal.
Importantly, Yardeni hasn't backed down from his famously bullish long-term stock market call. He still projects the S&P 500 could reach 10,000 by the end of this decade. In his framework, AI is just the latest technological revolution. It lowers costs, boosts output, and unlocks new business models—just like the internet, PCs, and electricity did before it. Sure, some roles may shrink, but history suggests innovation tends to reallocate labor rather than vaporize it entirely.
So, who's right? Citrini raised some valid concerns. If AI makes it easy for companies to build tools in-house, software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms could lose pricing power. If high-income workers are disproportionately affected, consumer spending could weaken faster than overall job numbers suggest. Markets often move on fear of what might happen long before it shows up in the economic data.
But the worst-case scenario assumes a lot. It assumes companies replace workers almost overnight, that displaced employees can't adapt, that spending collapses instead of shifting to new areas, and that policymakers do nothing in response.
History shows technology usually disrupts some sectors while creating entirely new ones. If AI lowers costs across the board, it could boost productivity, make goods and services cheaper, and spark new demand—not just destroy income.
That's why this debate matters so much for investors. If Citrini's darker view is correct, sectors heavy with white-collar jobs could face lasting pressure. If Yardeni's optimistic take holds, AI could fuel a new corporate earnings cycle that supports much higher stock prices.
The real question isn't whether AI changes the economy—everyone agrees it will. The question is whether it ultimately makes the economic pie smaller or a lot bigger. That distinction will likely decide whether the next few years look like a productivity boom or the stress test that Citrini just wrote from the future.
