What if AI coding agents write most of the code shipped to production?
A megacap freezing junior-engineer hiring as AI authors merged code is the highest-conviction displacement signal in the set; it strongly bids AI-capex (Nvidia, HBM) while denting entry-level tech labor and nudging credit spreads. Rhymes with 2023-24 big-tech layoff waves that coincided with AI-capex re-rating, not a demand collapse. Forward angle: junior-pipeline atrophy is a 3-5yr senior-talent scarcity risk, not a 2026 consumption hit.
Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.
The butterfly cascade
How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.
Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving
Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 1–3 years horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. A megacap freezes junior-engineer hiring as AI coding agents author most merged code, repricing the software-labor market. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — AI capex ▲ · Job displacement ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.