Agency

Agency

What a week at the intersection of silicon and sweat. With the rapidly growing adoption of OpenClaw and Opus 4.6, the "Great Displacement" narrative is back with a vengeance. When Mustafa Suleyman (Microsoft’s AI czar) states AI could replace every white-collar worker by Christmas 2027, and Matt Shumer’s "Something Big is Happening" post hits 100+ million views, it’s clear the zeitgeist has shifted from curiosity to genuine concern.

On the other side of the ledger, Harvard Business Review is urging us to take a breath. Their argument? AI won’t replace work; it will simply intensify it. It’s the same "Red Queen" race we ran with the PC, internet, and iPhone. That is, we won't work fewer hours than the office dwellers of 1990, just more intensely. But there’s an important caveat: the HBR research predates the current leap in models and agents.

A decade ago, Paul Roehrig, Ben Pring, and I co-authored What to Do When Machines Do Everything. We were the realists in a room full of alarmists. While others cited Oxford’s claim that "47% of jobs will vanish by 2025," we forecasted that employment would remain stable. We were right.

But today, I’m blowing the whistle. The math has changed. 

For example, using OpenClaw and Opus, I personally completed four major projects last week that recently would have required a team of six and a full month of work each. Today? Just one hour of the machine and me in collaboration. The experience was exhilarating…and sobering. 

So, what’s your play? It’s actually quite simple: Put AI at the dead center of your workflow right away.

We are entering the personal K-shaped economy. The top of the K: those who use AI as a force multiplier to 10x output. The bottom of the K: those who wait for instructions and become victimized.

And who is going to bridge that gap for you? Nobody. This isn't a corporate initiative; it’s a matter of personal agency. The machines aren't "doing everything,” but they are enabling you to do everything. If you choose to lead them.