The CEO of a $1 billion AI unicorn says his peers in Silicon Valley want you to fear for your job, but they’re actually first on the chopping block

Silicon Valley’s artificial intelligence (AI) boom has sparked widespread panic about the future of human labor, a moment summed up by AI executive Matt Shumer’s viral essay likening this moment in white-collar work to February 2020, before the pandemic devastated American life.

Shumer warned that white-collar workers have to figure out plan B right now, because a Covid-like extinction event is coming for white-collar work. Almost simultaneously, Microsoft’s AI chief Mustafa Suleyman...