Rising tide

The rising tide is the book’s image for how AI reaches work. A wave suggests one violent arrival, a peak, a retreat. A tide needs no single dramatic moment: it keeps coming, task by task, until the room is different and your shoes are wet. That changes the useful response. You do not have to predict the exact day a wave hits. You have to notice what is already becoming faster, cheaper or easier, and move before standing still becomes the decision. The tide is not a promise that everybody floats. Some roles shrink, some ladders lose their bottom rungs, some people carry more of the cost than others. Its one mercy is visibility: gradual change can still be seen, and seeing it is the opportunity.