Prediction-market odds of a white-collar job wipeout have tripled since a bearish report went viral

• The viral Citrini Research report on AI-driven job loss is still making waves online.
• Kalshi users are placing bets on if if the firm's bearish forecast will play out.
• The implied odds of a so-called Citrini scenario have roughly tripled since betting opened.

Citrini Research sent the stock market into a tailspin early this year — and the effects are still being felt.

In early February, the market-research firm published a report on Substack entitled "The Global Intelligence Crisis." Framed as a hypothetical thought exercise, it laid out a scenario in which AI-fueled job losses lead to a stock market crash and recession.

As with many things in markets and daily life nowadays, the Citrini outlook has made its way onto prediction-market sites. Bettors now have the ability to wager on whether the firm's forecast will come true.

The chart below shows the listing for the bet on Kalshi. Since going live, the implied odds of the Citrini scenario have roughly tripled from 10% to north of 30%.

What would it take for Kalshi to define a Citrini scenario? The platform provided a detailed list of possible scenarios, including the unemployment rate exceeding 10%, the S&P 500 declining more than 31.6% from where it began, and if the Zillow Home Value Index falling more than 10% on a year-over-year basis in a major city such as New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco.

If three of these negative scenarios played out at the same time before July 1, 2028, just after the June 30 date named by Citrini's authors, the market will resolve to a "Yes" answer. Betting volume for Citrini scenario wagers on Kalshi was at $14,418,610 as of Monday, suggesting that interest in this topic is high.

High stock market volatility and steep labor market declines may be fueling fears of a Citrini scenario. March began with the news that February job losses had been far worse than anticipated with unemployment rising 4.4%.

But bettors looking to Wall Street for indicators may be disappointed. Jurrien Timmer, director of global macro at Fidelity, posted that the company's strategists attribute recent stock market volatility more to diminished rate cut hopes and the K-shaped economic recovery than AI harming the labor market.