The AI renaissance: Your boss didn't fire you because AI does your job better

Companies found their PR gold mine: blaming mass layoffs on AI's success. This sounds much better than admitting it's time to tighten belts and fire people following rising interest rates.

Living and working within San Francisco's AI ecosystem, where researchers, engineers, and CEOs share what's really happening in hallway conversations, coffee shops, and dinner parties, you hear the real stories behind public announcements. These conversations reveal the growing disconnect between AI's promised economic revolution and what's actually happening. While headlines announce that entire departments are being replaced by computers and industries are collapsing, the ground truth tells a different story.

One telling sign is OpenAI's latest product. GPT-5 was supposed to bring us closer to artificial general intelligence but remained at a level close to its predecessor. Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, began realigning expectations and in recent interviews redefined AI's impact as a "Renaissance period" rather than an Industrial Revolution. A time of intellectual flourishing and gradual creative advancement, not sharp economic transformation.

The Real Story Behind Mass Layoffs

Conversations at philosophy meetups, reading clubs, and dimly lit bars paint a different picture. Managers admit what press releases won't say: most layoffs attributed to "AI does it better" are actually the painful transition from zero-interest hiring frenzies (2020-2022) to high-interest reality.

During the pandemic, venture capital flowed like water. Companies hired aggressively, betting on perpetual growth fueled by cheap money. When interest rates soared, this model collapsed and companies were left with excess employees they'd accumulated during the easy money era.

But "we overhired when money was cheap and now need to cut costs" sounds less attractive to investors and the public than "we're such an advanced company that we optimized ourselves like no one else using AI." One sounds dull, the other innovative, visionary, forward-looking. A management mistake becomes a strategic advantage.

The Data Tells a Different Story

Several studies examining AI's economic effects encountered less impressive results than expected. There's no strong correlation between how exposed workers are to AI and unemployment rates. Even studies claiming AI replaces workers reveal suspicious patterns. Economist Erik Brynjolfsson found employment decline mainly among very young workers, while older workers in the same fields had high employment growth.

This raises suspicion that the conclusion isn't really AI-related. If the tools really made engineers less necessary, why is only one age group affected?

Another study showed no significant change in salary growth percentages either. Genuine disruption would affect both employment and wages.

We Are in a Renaissance

We're expanding human capabilities and the boundaries of what we can accomplish, but we're not fully replacing ourselves.

An economic revolution, by definition, fundamentally reshapes how societies create and distribute wealth. The Industrial Revolution moved entire populations from agriculture to factories. The information age made knowledge work a dominant economic force. By this standard, AI represents intellectual advancement more than economic upheaval.

Analysis shows AI data centers' spending will reach 1.2% of US GDP in 2025. While significant, during the Industrial Revolution, infrastructure construction represented 6% of GDP annually. Additionally, more investors are reporting that most of their AI company investments haven't generated profit. People are starting to notice the disconnect between hype and reality.

Future Uncertainty

Will AI eventually replace jobs on a wide scale? Possibly. Technology continues to advance rapidly, and future breakthroughs might trigger genuine economic disruption. But until that happens, companies will continue using AI narratives to justify decisions actually driven by economic fundamentals.

Meanwhile, the AI Renaissance offers something perhaps more valuable than economic revolution: empowerment of human capabilities beyond previously known boundaries. Instead of fearing an apocalypse that's not materializing, we should embrace the intellectual golden age actually happening while maintaining skepticism toward sensationalized headlines designed to obscure some CEO's economic decisions.

This doesn't mean AI isn't changing how we work and live. The tools are impressive, productivity gains are real, and creative possibilities expand daily. But instead of getting swept up in apocalyptic predictions, we should ask: is the revolution really that close, or should we stick to reality and examine what the data actually shows? The present moment reveals a more complex story than the headlines suggest.

Nicole Levin is an executive in a stealth AI startup in San Francisco.

bars paint a different picture. Managers admit what press releases won't say: most layoffs attributed to "AI does it better" are actually the painful transition from zero-interest hiring frenzies (2020-2022) to high-interest reality.

During the pandemic, venture capital flowed like water. Companies hired aggressively, betting on perpetual growth fueled by cheap money. When interest rates soared, this model collapsed and companies were left with excess employees they'd accumulated during the easy money era.

But "we overhired when money was cheap and now need to cut costs" sounds less attractive to investors and the public than "we're such an advanced company that we optimized ourselves like no one else using AI." One sounds dull, the other innovative, visionary, forward-looking. A management mistake becomes a strategic advantage.

The Data Tells a Different Story

Several studies examining AI's economic effects encountered less impressive results than expected. There's no strong correlation between how exposed workers are to AI and unemployment rates. Even studies claiming AI replaces workers reveal suspicious patterns. Economist Erik Brynjolfsson found employment decline mainly among very young workers, while older workers in the same fields had high employment growth.

This raises suspicion that the conclusion isn't really AI-related. If the tools really made engineers less necessary, why is only one age group affected?

Another study showed no significant change in salary growth percentages either. Genuine disruption would affect both employment and wages.

We Are in a Renaissance

We're expanding human capabilities and the boundaries of what we can accomplish, but we're not fully replacing ourselves.

An economic revolution, by definition, fundamentally reshapes how societies create and distribute wealth. The Industrial Revolution moved entire populations from agriculture to factories. The information age made knowledge work a dominant economic force. By this standard, AI represents intellectual advancement more than economic upheaval.

Analysis shows AI data centers' spending will reach 1.2% of US GDP in 2025. While significant, during the Industrial Revolution, infrastructure construction represented 6% of GDP annually. Additionally, more investors are reporting that most of their AI company investments haven't generated profit. People are starting to notice the disconnect between hype and reality.

Future Uncertainty

Will AI eventually replace jobs on a wide scale? Possibly. Technology continues to advance rapidly, and future breakthroughs might trigger genuine economic disruption. But until that happens, companies will continue using AI narratives to justify decisions actually driven by economic fundamentals.

Meanwhile, the AI Renaissance offers something perhaps more valuable than economic revolution: empowerment of human capabilities beyond previously known boundaries. Instead of fearing an apocalypse that's not materializing, we should embrace the intellectual golden age actually happening while maintaining skepticism toward sensationalized headlines designed to obscure some CEO's economic decisions.

This doesn't mean AI isn't changing how we work and live. The tools are impressive, productivity gains are real, and creative possibilities expand daily. But instead of getting swept up in apocalyptic predictions, we should ask: is the revolution really that close, or should we stick to reality and examine what the data actually shows? The present moment reveals a more complex story than the headlines suggest.

Nicole Levin is an executive in a stealth AI startup in San Francisco.