Why is everyone underestimating AI?

Let me start with this: I love being in the tech bubble. Using X every day, gathering news, seeing what other people are cooking is something I love. This obviously includes seeing the rapid development of AI. But whenever I talk to people outside, they don't seem to understand the severity of how much AI has already changed, and will certainly change in the future. They tell me AI is a nice-to-have, and compare it to crypto and NFTs.

It's not. AI is not an alternative to something that already existed. It's the first technology that we can only compare to the brain itself. It multiplies our ability to think. It's more or less a next step in human evolution, because what sets us apart from other animals is now dynamically available to everyone. The only limiting factor is energy.

A person I know works as a business analyst at a larger corporation. He manages Excel sheets, drafts emails, does little tasks I can only describe as "admin work". This is his everyday job. He doesn't really care much about his job. It's just a nine to five anyway, and he looks much more forward to living a fulfilled life. He doesn't care much about news, still doesn't know about ChatGPT's abilities, and has never heard of Claude.

If I asked him how long he'll end up doing his job, he'd probably, with all his confidence, say that he'll do it till he retires. And that's something I can't believe. I can't believe how few people like him care about news. It's ok to not run after everything, but why are such workers not questioning what the "final state of AI" will be. They don't know that AI is already capable of doing all of their work, in much less time, at much lower cost.

I think that the exponential development of AI, especially what we have seen this year (2026), will cost such people their jobs. Only employees capable of actually using AI in an efficient way will be able to keep their jobs, because they can multiply their workforce. Why keep someone who works for one human, when you can have someone doing the daily work of 3, 4, 5 humans?

Workers thinking they will keep their jobs until retirement while working on admin stuff all day will one day wake up with a shock. They will be fired without any prior notice, without even having done anything wrong. Their mistake is that they didn't see coming what was clear for most of us in the tech bubble for years: AI will do IT jobs much better, more reliably, than most humans ever could. And AI is not even in its final state. Think about that: today, AI is in its worst-ever state. It's only getting better from here. There is no turning back, there is no end to the "hype." Why? Because AI delivers real value.