The Future Isn't Dystopian. It's Just Competent.

Some managers are measuring employee “token usage”—how much they use AI—as a performance metric. This is what efficiency looks like when no one wants to admit they’re cutting. Beijing wants rapid AI adoption, but not visible disruption. And yet, here we are.

Imagine a production department that shrinks from thirty to ten, then from ten to five. Only two or three left for live-action shoots. The death of entire categories of work, happening in a small corner of entertainment. No one writes think pieces about micro-drama producers. The future isn’t dystopian. It’s just competent.

Why should it matter if 70 million jobs are at high risk? Why should it matter if a third of all young workers are being displaced? Is that a crisis? Or just the future? The law against mass layoffs is the instruction manual for mass layoffs. Companies are firing in ones and twos. How many ones and twos add up to a third?

The future isn’t dystopian. It’s just competent.

Source: Reuters - “China Inc deploys ‘quiet’ layoffs as Beijing promotes AI adoption”