The Coming Storm

Is it already here?

(Source: The Cancun Sun)

February 14, 2026

Atlanta, GA

This week I read the most frightening article I’ve seen in a while.

We’re in February 2026. But the author fears it’s February 2020, when most people became aware of a weird virus halfway around the world.

Before then, people who paid attention knew a strange germ was wafting around Wuhan. By February everyone else caught wind.

But few expected the coming gale. Within weeks, we were blown away, and our lives would never be the same. Now another breeze is picking up, with greater force.

For a couple years, and especially the last few months, insiders have seen whitecaps kicking up offshore. Now the tsunami is about to hit, yet most of us are still lounging on the beach.

That’s the sobering thesis Matt Shumer lays out in this article. He warns that we’re in the “‘this seems overblown’ phase of something much bigger than Covid.”

According to Shumer, the contagion is already here… only those it targets remain oblivious or indifferent to what it will do. But they’re about to find out.

For Artificial Intelligence (AI), “fifteen days to slow the spread” is just around the corner. That analogy should cause chills, and prompt all of us to wear a sweater.

As head of an AI company, Shumer is an executive and investor in that industry. He’s been aware for a while what’s coming, but given how quickly it’s approaching he wrote this essay to help people prepare.

Something Entirely New

Last year, I reviewed The Preparation by Doug Casey, Matt Smith, and Maxim Smith, which outlines an alternative to college for young men.

Part of the reason Casey and the Smiths wrote that book was to “future proof” readers against the effects of AI. Shumer echoes that concern, but with the expertise and experience (and urgency) of someone who’s felt the impact.

As he put it to complacent readers:

“Here’s the thing nobody outside of tech quite understands yet: the reason so many people in the industry are sounding the alarm right now is because this already happened to us. We’re not making predictions. We’re telling you what already occurred in our own jobs, and warning you you’re next.”

Shumer isn’t the only one sounding the alarm. This week, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman (who admittedly has incentive to hype AI capabilities) told the Financial Times:

“White-collar jobs—those sitting in front of computers, whether lawyers, accountants, project managers, or marketers—most of these tasks will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months.”

For several years, AI has made gradual advances that few noticed. Granted, most aren’t looking. To the extent they do, they’ve seen interchangeable versions of high-functioning search engines or automated research assistants.

Often as not, answers are absurd, images insipid, and the writing terrible. But as Shumer tells us, the AI most people see is woefully out of date, even if it’s only a few months old. Anything from a quarter ago is already an anachronism.

Last week, OpenAI announced GPT-5.3 Codex, and Anthropic released Opus 4.6. Shumer tells us these improvements aren’t incremental; they’re something entirely new.

It was as if he’d spent years watching a small stream gurgle from an incipient spring, only to wake up one day to find the Nile… because he was in it. Before we know it we’ll be in the ocean, trying not to drown.

No Longer Needed

As of this week, Shumer is no longer needed for the technical aspects of his job. He lets AI know what he needs, and the tool does the work. All of it, at least as well as a human specialist could:

“It writes tens of thousands of lines of code. Then, and this is the part that would have been unthinkable a year ago, it opens the app itself. It clicks through the buttons. It tests the features. It uses the app the way a person would. If it doesn’t like how something looks or feels, it goes back and changes it, on its own. It iterates, like a developer would, fixing and refining until it’s satisfied. Only once it has decided the app meets its own standards does it come back to me and say: ‘It’s ready for you to test.’ And when I test it, it’s usually perfect.”

The latest models don’t merely answer questions and execute instructions. They make intelligent decisions with what Shumer describes as “something that felt, for the first time, like judgment. Like taste.”

These elusive attributes were supposed to remain the exclusive purview of real people. The expectation (hope) among many was that an inability to understand or intuit would keep AI from displacing too many workers. Shumer has us wondering how many it’ll spare.

The latest models exhibit comprehension, or something close enough that any deficiencies don’t matter. And, as the aphorism has it, difference that makes no difference is no difference.

How did this happen?

A Deliberate Decision

When developing AI, labs made the deliberate decision to begin by making the tool write code… partly because so much is required.

But once the model knows how to write it, it can create the next version of itself, which is what it’s been doing… till the latest iterations can replace us. This is what’s happened in the software space.

That’s why careers in coding, computer science, and software development are becoming irrelevant first. These are places where AI advancements have been focused, so that’s where capability gains are most apparent. Shumer’s expectation is that this is the year other fields feel it.

As Shumer noted, previous disruptions were (relatively speaking) more confined. The Industrial Revolution eliminated agricultural work but offered opportunities in factories. Automation reduced blue collar employment but enticed more employees into an office. But AI infiltrates almost every escape route while closing most hatches.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei expects AI to replace half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. Law, Finance, Marketing, Medicine: none are immune.

Will it be to the extent Amodei expects? I don’t know. But it’s probably wise to assume so. The problem is knowing what to do about it.

What to Do

Shumer’s advice is to take AI seriously. Not just as a threat, but as a tool. Start using it, but as more of an assistant than a search engine. Give it contracts, spreadsheets, or random data and ask for assessments, models, and implications.

Then keep iterating, not to “train your replacement” but to understand what it can do. Whether AI encroaches as quickly as Shumer expects, it’s coming. Anyone who ignores it will be run over.

Financially, it’s always smart to have savings for unexpected setbacks. AI-induced career disruption shouldn’t come as a surprise. If it would be a shock, new debt and exorbitant expenses are best avoided.

After a pound of precaution, Shumer offers an ounce of optimism. What’s coming isn’t unequivocally dire. Even a deluge waters while it washes away. Those who learn to use these tools where preparing for their effects can find ways to thrive. Oblivious order-following functionaries will become obsolete.

As should be obvious, I’m a novice. I use AI, but mostly in the way Shumer assumes most people do. I also know that previous waves of “creative destruction” facilitated enormous advances despite acute damage to established ways of life.

I have no doubt AI will be transformative, and disruption is inevitable. But technological change rarely moves as fast as insiders predict, and humans are more adaptable than pessimists expect.

Panicking is usually pointless, but preparation is always advisable. Acquiring marketable skills is crucial, particularly those requiring personal touch, physical presence, or credentialed accountability. Capability, curiosity, and adaptability are essential, and have always been necessary to be successful.

If what I’ve just read is right, they’re now needed for survival. But it’s better to have them even if they aren’t.

JD

PS - My latest release is now available, but it has nothing to do with artificial intelligence… or perhaps with any at all!

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