Artificial Intelligence and the New World of Work: The Grind Isn’t Just Enough Anymore
By Abraham Ameh
When a CEO says a “significantly smaller team” can now do more with AI, it isn’t Silicon Valley drama; it’s a warning to workers, companies, and countries like Nigeria.
The new insult of our time: “depreciated”
A sentence has been circulating online like street wisdom: “Imagine disappearing for 90 days to master a skill, only to return and realize AI just automated it. You didn’t come back dangerous. You came back depreciated.”
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It sounds like hype until you watch how boardrooms are rewriting the math of labour in real time.
In February 2026, fintech giant Block (the company behind Square and Cash App) announced it was cutting more than 4,000 employees, reducing its workforce from over 10,000 to just under 6,000. And the reason wasn’t weak demand. CEO Jack Dorsey framed it as an AI-enabled redesign of the company: “A significantly smaller team… can do more and do it better.” Investors applauded; the stock jumped sharply in after-hours trading. CNN CNBC BBC News
Days earlier, Reuters reported that Australia’s WiseTech Global planned to cut about 2,000 jobs, nearly a third of its workforce, as it embeds AI across software engineering and operations. The CEO’s line was blunt: “The era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over.” Reuters
This is the “AI shock” behind the memes: not robots on factory floors, but software in office jobs speeding up work, shrinking teams, and changing what employers pay for.
The hard numbers: this isn’t a vibe, it’s a transition
There’s no single statistic that captures disruption everywhere. However, multiple heavyweight institutions, often conservative in their language, are now publishing numbers that point in the same direction: jobs will not vanish overnight, but tasks will be reorganized on a large scale.
Global exposure is already huge
The IMF estimates “almost 40 percent of global employment is exposed to AI” with about 60% exposed in advanced economies, 40% in emerging markets, and 26% in low-income countries. IMF
That “exposure” does not mean automatic unemployment. It means AI can perform or reshape a meaningful portion of tasks inside those jobs enough to change hiring, pay, promotion, and career ladders.
Clerical work is the early casualty zone
The ILO’s global task-based analysis finds clerical work stands out: 24% of clerical tasks are “highly exposed,” and 58% are “medium exposed.” The ILO’s conclusion is telling: the bigger impact is likely augmentation (rebuilding jobs around AI) more than full automation yet clerical roles are the most vulnerable. ILO Working Paper 96
Employers are planning both hiring and cutting at once
The World Economic Forum projects that between 2025 and 2030, structural transformation could create 170 million jobs while displacing 92 million, for a net gain but with painful churn underneath that headline. The same report notes: 40% of employers anticipate reducing workforce where AI can automate tasks, and clerical roles (bank tellers, data entry, admin assistants) are among the fastest-declining. WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 (PDF)
The new hiring signal: AI skill beats experience
Microsoft and LinkedIn’s 2024 Work Trend Index reports: 75% of knowledge workers are using generative AI; 66% of leaders say they wouldn’t hire someone without AI skills; and 71% would choose a less experienced candidate with AI skills over a more experienced one without. Microsoft/LinkedIn Work Trend Index 2024 (PDF)
That is a cultural shift: AI competence becomes a new form of literacy like reading, writing, Excel, etc
The macro forecast: GDP up, pressure down
Goldman Sachs’ economics research estimated that generative AI could raise annual global GDP by 7%, and that it could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation. Goldman Sachs Global Economics Analyst
In plain terms: society can get richer while many workers feel poorer and more replaceable unless policy and skills catch up.
What’s really changing: the “lean cognition economy”
For decades, the promise was simple: learn a skill, master it, monetize it. AI breaks the straight line.
AI doesn’t just automate muscle; it compresses cognitive labour:
a junior worker produces senior-level drafts with copilots
a small team ships what used to require an entire department
routine “entry-level” tasks (the traditional training ground) get eaten first
Block’s layoff logic is the new corporate template: smaller teams + AI tooling = faster output. CNN
This is why the grind alone fails. The grind matters, but it must be AI-augmented.
Nigeria’s dilemma: late adoption is not safety—it’s a trap
Some will argue: “Nigeria is a low-income country; the IMF says our exposure is lower (26%). So we’re safer.”
That is the dangerous misunderstanding.
Lower exposure can also mean lower capacity to benefit and higher risk of being locked out of new productivity, new capital flows, and new job categories.
Nigeria’s own National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (Draft, August 2024) explicitly frames AI as opportunity and threat, highlighting risks including “potential labour market displacements,” plus governance issues like privacy, transparency and ethics. Nigeria NAIS Draft (PDF)
The same document points to real structural constraints. One example it cites: Nigeria’s internet performance and readiness gaps referencing Speedtest and other indices, underscoring how infrastructure limits can slow innovation and adoption. Nigeria NAIS Draft (PDF)
Yet Nigeria is not standing still. The NAIS draft references major initiatives already underway or positioned as national levers:
- NCAIR (National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics)
- 3MTT (3 Million Technical Talent)
- NAIRS (Nigeria Artificial Intelligence Research Scheme)
- Nigeria NAIS Draft (PDF)
Nigeria’s real question is not “Will AI come?” It is: When it comes fully, will it arrive as a tool in Nigerian hands or as a foreign bulldozer flattening Nigerian job ladders?
The three-tier sorting of workers (and where Nigerians may land)
AI disruption doesn’t hit everyone equally. It tends to sort people into three groups:
The Automated
People whose jobs are heavy on routine, repeatable, rules-based tasks especially clerical workflows, basic reporting, scheduling, first-line customer support, data entry. The ILO’s findings on clerical exposure are the loudest alarm bell here. ILO Working Paper 96
The Augmented
People who keep their role but now deliver 2–5x output using AI. The Microsoft/LinkedIn data suggests this is becoming mainstream, not niche. Microsoft/LinkedIn Work Trend Index 2024 (PDF)
The Architects
The smaller group building and governing systems: AI engineers, data stewards, model auditors, cybersecurity specialists, product leaders who understand AI limits and risks.
Nigeria cannot afford a workforce where the majority stay in Tier 1 while the value and wages move to Tiers 2 and 3.
The new rules of survival (for individuals, companies, and the state)
For Nigerian workers: stop defining yourself by a tool
If your identity is only “copywriter,” “customer support,” “analyst,” “junior developer,” you’re standing on one leg.
Define yourself by the problem you solve and the outcome you deliver, then use AI as leverage.
Practical rule: build an “AI proof-of-work” portfolio. Not just certificates, show how you use AI to cut turnaround time, improve quality control, create better customer outcomes
That is what the new hiring logic rewards. Microsoft/LinkedIn Work Trend Index 2024 (PDF)
For Nigerian businesses: don’t copy Silicon Valley layoffs, copy capability building
Block and WiseTech are signals, but Nigeria’s private sector must be careful: importing “lean AI” without local safety nets can deepen instability.
Still, one truth stands: companies will pay for results, not headcount. That shift is already visible in global restructuring narratives. Reuters CNN
For government: treat AI literacy like basic education
The WEF estimates that if the world’s workforce were 100 people, 59 would need training by 2030. WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 (PDF)
Nigeria should read that as a national security memo.
The NAIS draft already frames a national direction around responsible, ethical and inclusive AI, and references national programs (NCAIR, 3MTT, NAIRS). The task now is execution at scale. Nigeria NAIS Draft (PDF)
Conclusion: AI won’t punish your absence, only your stagnation
The viral fear is real: you can disappear for three months and come back “depreciated.” But the deeper truth is harsher: AI doesn’t punish absence. It punishes stagnation.
The future of work will not be a clean war of humans vs machines. It will be a competition between:
- workers who use AI as leverage
- workers whose tasks get rewritten by someone else’s AI
For Nigeria, the stakes are bigger than careers. This is about whether we become:
- a nation that supplies cheap labour to a smarter world, or
- a nation that builds capability, productivity, and new industries on our own terms
AI is already restructuring companies in public view. The only question left is whether we will watch it happen or shape what happens next. CNN