No one knows whether AI will trigger a white-collar jobpocalypse. The loudest warnings still come from people building and selling the technology, whose predictions often double as hype-mongering or cover for unrelated cost cutting with investor-friendly language. Think tank and analyst forecasts are no less vertiginous.

The honest answer is that current data gaps leave us all guessing.

But we do know the script that¡¯s already creeping up as displacement begins to trickle: ¡°retraining,¡± ¡°upskilling¡± and the hollow language used to make dislocation politically palatable. We cannot allow it to become the next comforting lie or a way to sell the future while abandoning the people forced to live through it.