The Citrini Research: When AI Agents Break the Economy
A new report from Citrini Research paints a disturbing picture: not of robots with weapons, but of the gradual unspooling of the economic order. It is called the Citrini Scenario, and it is making people uncomfortable.
The scenario imagines a report from two years in the future, where unemployment has doubled and the stock market has fallen by more than a third. The cause: not AI malice, but AI efficiency.
The Core Problem
The Citrini scenario focuses on what happens when AI agents start replacing human contractors at scale. Not jobs in general, but specific contractor relationships that businesses rely on today.
The theory goes: companies have been outsourcing work to contractors (freelancers, agencies, consultants) because it is flexible. But when AI agents can do that work cheaper, in-house, the economic disruption is immediate.
The Negative Feedback Loop
As described in the scenario:
- AI capabilities improved
- Companies needed fewer workers
- White collar layoffs increased
- Displaced workers spent less
- Margin pressure pushed firms to invest more in AI
- AI capabilities improved
It was a negative feedback loop with no natural brake. The system turned out to be one long daisy chain of correlated bets on white-collar productivity growth.
Not Just Jobs: The SaaS Connection
This is similar to the Death of SaaS scenario, but Citrini goes further. It implicates any business model that involves optimizing transactions between companies.
The report notes that most of the impacted decisions have already been handed off to third-party contractors. When AI replaces those contractors, the ripple effects spread through every company that depended on that transaction chain.
Why This Matters Now
This is not theoretical. Companies are already deploying AI agents to handle tasks previously outsourced:
- Customer support (was: offshore contractors; now: AI agents)
- Content generation (was: agencies; now: AI)
- Data entry (was: freelancers; now: automation)
- Basic coding (was: contractors; now: AI coding agents)
Each replacement is small. The aggregate effect could be massive.
The Debate
The report is causing quite a stir online. Not everyone is buying it. Citrini itself describes it as more of a scenario than a prediction.
But the uncomfortable question remains: at what point does the scenario go wrong? Where is the brake on this machine?
The answer is not clear.
Sources: