PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Invierno 2025

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/expansion-primera-ed/20260210/textview/page/2

Pontegadea apuesta por Australia

https://www.expansion.com/inmobiliario/mercado/2026/02/09/6989d4d1e5fdea626a8b45a1.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/inmobiliario/mercado/2026/02/10/698a3ba1e5fdea89458b45a0.html

https://www.expansion.com/empresas/tecnologia/2026/02/10/698a737e468aeb360b8b45b6.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/expansion-primera-ed/20260210/textview/page/20

Vuelve el festival de máximos a las bolsas

https://www.expansion.com/mercados/2026/02/10/698a49e8e5fdea1c3e8b45bb.html

https://www.expansion.com/economia/financial-times/2026/02/09/6989ea48e5fdeafc4a8b459e.html

https://www.expansion.com/economia/financial-times/2026/02/09/6989a943e5fdea652d8b4589.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2026/02/10/698a24d8e5fdea6b1a8b4594.html

https://www.europapress.es/economia/macroeconomia-00338/noticia-gobierno-activa-linea-ico-crecimiento-exportadores-750-millones-pymes-afectadas-aranceles-20260209162334.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2026/02/09/6989cb44e5fdea600c8b458c.html

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/expansion-primera-ed/20260210/textview/page/30

Seguridad Social reactiva las negociaciones para minorar las bajas de larga duracion

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/opinion/2026/02/10/698b105be5fdeac5738b457a.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/expansion-primera-ed/20260210/textview/page/46

Bad Bunny brinda el show de la Super Bowl a la plantilla de Zara

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.economiadigital.es/empresas/asprima-fin-vivienda-asequible.html

Asprima pone cifra al fin de la vivienda asequible: el coste de edificar sube un 3,3% en 2025
La Asociación de Promotores Inmobiliarios de Madrid advierte que el precio de construcción alcanza los 1.360 euros por metro cuadrado, una barrera que hace inviable la producción de obra nueva para rentas medias

Alfonso Abad García · 2026.02.10

Viviendas en construcción

El sueño de la vivienda asequible en España tiene ahora un precio concreto que lo convierte en inalcanzable: 1.360 euros por metro cuadrado. Esta es la cifra que, según el último informe sectorial de la Asociación de Promotores Inmobiliarios de Madrid (ASPRIMA), marca el coste medio de construcción en el cuarto trimestre de 2025, un 3,3% más que un año antes y un 2,8% superior al trimestre anterior.

Este módulo de 1.360 euros por metro cuadrado, calculado por la tasadora Sociedad de Tasación, representa únicamente el coste de ejecución material: ladrillos, hormigón, instalaciones eléctricas, fontanería, carpintería y mano de obra.

Es decir, lo que cuesta físicamente levantar el edificio. Pero la ecuación económica de un promotor no termina ahí. A esta cifra hay que sumarle el precio del suelo, cada vez más escaso y caro en las grandes ciudades; los honorarios técnicos, las tasas municipales, los impuestos, los gastos financieros durante la construcción y, finalmente, el margen de beneficio industrial.

Haciendo números sobre un piso de 80 metros cuadrados, solo el coste de construcción asciende a 108.800 euros. Si a eso se añade un suelo que en Madrid puede costar entre 500 y 800 euros por metro cuadrado edificable, más impuestos y gastos que pueden rondar otro 20-30% adicional, el precio final de venta debe situarse necesariamente por encima de los 250.000-280.000 euros para que el promotor no entre en pérdidas.

Calle Wenwai zh:深圳文衛路, distrito de Bao'an, Shenzhen en julio de 2017

La consecuencia más dramática de esta escalada de costes es el desplome de la vivienda protegida. Según el informe de ASPRIMA, en la Comunidad de Madrid las transacciones de vivienda protegida, tanto nueva como usada, representan apenas el 5,5% del total del mercado, con 4.512 operaciones registradas, lo que supone un descenso interanual del 4,4%.

A nivel nacional, la cifra es ligeramente superior (6,8%), pero igualmente testimonial.

La explicación reside en una contradicción estructural: los precios máximos de venta que establecen las administraciones para la vivienda protegida no han seguido el ritmo de los costes de construcción.

Con un coste base de 1.360 euros por metro cuadrado solo en ejecución, más el suelo y demás gastos, resulta prácticamente imposible para un promotor cumplir con los topes de precio de la vivienda de protección oficial y obtener un mínimo retorno que justifique el riesgo empresarial.

El resultado es paradójico: justo cuando más se necesita, menos se construye. Los datos de calificaciones provisionales en Madrid son reveladores: en los nueve primeros meses de 2025 se calificaron apenas 2.341 viviendas protegidas, una cifra irrisoria comparada con las más de 80.000 transacciones totales registradas en la Comunidad.

Aunque el dato anualizado asciende a 10.408 unidades, esto se debe a la inclusión estadística de más de 6.000 viviendas del Plan Vive de la Comunidad de Madrid contabilizadas en el último trimestre de 2024.

El informe de ASPRIMA recoge que los depósitos bancarios de las familias españolas están cerca de alcanzar los 1,1 billones de euros, un máximo histórico. La tasa de ahorro de los hogares se mantiene por encima del 12% de la renta bruta disponible, niveles desconocidos en la última década.

Edificios en construcción

Es decir, hay dinero, hay intención de compra —según el CIS, el porcentaje de familias que desean adquirir una vivienda en el próximo año se sitúa en niveles cercanos a máximos—, y hay un mercado laboral sólido con una tasa de paro en mínimos (9,93% a nivel nacional, 7% en Madrid).

Pero la industria de la construcción residencial ya no puede fabricar el producto que ese ahorrador medio necesita: una vivienda digna a un precio razonable.

Asprima señala un desequilibrio entre oferta y demanda

La consecuencia es un desequilibrio creciente entre oferta y demanda. Según los cálculos de ASPRIMA basados en datos del INE y del Ministerio de Vivienda, solo en los nueve primeros meses de 2025 el déficit de vivienda superó las 100.000 unidades. Con una creación neta de hogares que ronda las 250.000 familias anuales y apenas 90.000 viviendas terminadas, la brecha se ensancha cada trimestre.

Los promotores madrileños advierten que la situación no tiene visos de mejorar a corto plazo. Aunque se ha observado una cierta recuperación en el número de viviendas iniciadas —con cifras anualizadas superiores a las 19.000 unidades en la Comunidad de Madrid—, esto sigue siendo insuficiente para cubrir la demanda real.

Además, no existe el suelo finalista necesario ni suelo en desarrollo en plazos compatibles con la urgencia del problema.

Obras en bloques de casas

Mientras tanto, los precios siguen su escalada. El Índice de Precios de la Vivienda del INE refleja incrementos interanuales del 12,8% en el tercer trimestre de 2025, con subidas trimestrales del 2,9%. En la Comunidad de Madrid, la vivienda usada se ha encarecido un 14,88% interanual, evidenciando una presión que no encuentra alivio en la nueva construcción.

Con un esfuerzo teórico del 42,8% del coste salarial necesario para comprar en Madrid —frente al 33,6% de media nacional—, la ecuación es sencilla: construir es caro, comprar es carísimo, y la vivienda asequible ha dejado de existir como opción de mercado.

No sé de qué se extrañan, todo el mundo sabe que la vivienda no es para vivir sino para himbertir...

Saludos.

[muyuu]

https://europeanbusinessmagazine.com/business/europes-24-trillion-breakup-with-visa-and-mastercard-has-begun/

Europe's $24 Trillion Breakup With Visa and Mastercard
7 - 9 minutes

ECB President Christine Lagarde has called for Europe to break its dependence on American payment infrastructure, warning that every card transaction sends European consumer data to the United States. A coalition of 16 banks thinks it has the answer.

QUICK ANSWER

What’s happening? ECB President Christine Lagarde told Irish radio that Europe needs its own digital payment system “urgently,” warning that virtually all European card and mobile payments currently run through non-European infrastructure controlled by Visa, Mastercard, PayPal or Alipay. Days later, on 2 February, the European Payments Initiative (EPI) and the EuroPA Alliance signed a landmark agreement to build a pan-European interoperable payment network covering 130 million users across 13 countries. The system, built around the digital wallet Wero, aims to let Europeans pay and transfer money across borders without touching a single American network.
Join The European Business Briefing


Every time a European taps a card, pays online or splits a bill with friends, the transaction flows through infrastructure owned and operated by American companies. Visa and Mastercard together process approximately $24 trillion in transactions annually. Card payments account for 56% of all cashless transactions in the EU. And the data — who bought what, where, when and for how much — leaves European jurisdiction every time.

“It’s important for us to have digital payment under our control,” Lagarde told The Pat Kenny Show. “Whether you use a card or whether you use a phone, typically it goes through Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Alipay. Where are all those coming from? Well, either the US or China.”

The host’s response — “I didn’t realise this” — captured the broader European blind spot. Most consumers have no idea that their payment data routinely exits the EU. In a geopolitical environment where Europe is scrambling to reduce dependence on the United States across defence, energy and trade, payments remain an overlooked vulnerability.

The lesson of Russia sharpened the urgency. When Western sanctions cut Russia off from Visa and Mastercard in 2022, the country’s domestic payments were immediately disrupted. European policymakers asked the obvious question: what would happen if the US decided — or was pressured — to restrict European access to those same networks?
Enter Wero

The European Payments Initiative, a consortium of 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Worldline, launched Wero in July 2024 as Europe’s answer. Built on SEPA instant credit transfers, Wero lets users send money using just a phone number — no IBAN, no card, no intermediary.

The numbers so far are encouraging. Wero already has over 47 million registered users in Belgium, France and Germany, has processed over €7.5 billion in transfers, and counts more than 1,100 member institutions. Retail payments went live in Germany at the end of 2025, with merchants including Lidl, Decathlon, Rossmann and Air Europa already accepting Wero online. France and Belgium follow in 2026.

But the real breakthrough came on 2 February, when EPI signed a memorandum of understanding with the EuroPA Alliance — a coalition of national payment systems including Italy’s Bancomat, Spain’s Bizum, Portugal’s MB WAY and the Nordics’ Vipps MobilePay. The deal instantly connects approximately 130 million users across 13 countries, covering roughly 72% of the EU and Norway population. Cross-border peer-to-peer payments launch this year, with e-commerce and point-of-sale payments following in 2027.

“European payment sovereignty is not a vision, but a reality in the making,” said Martina Weimert, CEO of EPI.
Why Previous Attempts Failed

Europe has tried this before. The Monnet Project, launched in 2008 by twenty European banks, collapsed in 2012. The original EPI vision itself was scaled back after several founding members withdrew, forcing a pivot from a full card-replacement scheme to a narrower account-to-account model.

The core problem has always been fragmentation. Each EU country developed its own domestic payment solution — Bizum in Spain, iDEAL in the Netherlands, Payconiq in Belgium, Girocard in Germany — but none could work across borders. A Belgian consumer buying from a Dutch retailer still needed Visa or Mastercard. National pride and competing banking interests repeatedly sabotaged attempts at unification.

The network effect compounds the challenge. Merchants accept Visa and Mastercard because consumers carry them. Consumers carry them because merchants accept them. Breaking that loop requires either regulatory force or a critical mass of users large enough to make merchants care — which is precisely what the EuroPA deal attempts to deliver by connecting existing national user bases rather than building from scratch.
The Digital Euro Question

Running in parallel is the ECB’s digital euro project, which would create a central bank-backed digital currency usable across the eurozone. EU finance ministers have accelerated discussions on the initiative, though the European Parliament has not yet passed the required legislation. Once approved, the ECB estimates it would need a further two to three years to launch.

EPI is careful to distinguish Wero from the digital euro. Wero is a private-sector initiative; the digital euro is public money. They are designed to complement rather than compete — though the overlap in ambition is obvious. Both exist because Europe’s political establishment has finally accepted that payments sovereignty is as strategically important as energy independence or defence autonomy.
Can It Actually Work?

Sceptics have good reasons for doubt. Creating a viable alternative to Visa and Mastercard requires “several billion euros” in investment, according to EPI’s own estimates. Low interchange fees under EU regulation make profitability difficult. Consumer habits are deeply entrenched — and neither Visa nor Mastercard will sit idle while Europe tries to dismantle their most profitable market.

Weimert herself concedes that calling Wero a “challenger” may be premature, describing it as functioning like a startup — albeit one with €500 million in backing and 47 million users already on board.

But the political tailwinds are stronger than they have ever been. The EU’s instant payments regulation, the Capital Markets Union push, the broader drive for European strategic autonomy in a world of tariff wars and great power rivalry — all point in the same direction. The question is no longer whether Europe wants its own payment infrastructure. It is whether it can execute fast enough to matter.

As Lagarde put it: “We have the assets and opportunities to do that ourselves. And if we were to remove the internal barriers that we have set for ourselves in Europe, our economic wealth would increase significantly.”

[tomasjos]

https://www.economiadigital.es/empresas/asprima-fin-vivienda-asequible.html

Asprima pone cifra al fin de la vivienda asequible: el coste de edificar sube un 3,3% en 2025
La Asociación de Promotores Inmobiliarios de Madrid advierte que el precio de construcción alcanza los 1.360 euros por metro cuadrado, una barrera que hace inviable la producción de obra nueva para rentas medias

Alfonso Abad García · 2026.02.10

Viviendas en construcción

El sueño de la vivienda asequible en España tiene ahora un precio concreto que lo convierte en inalcanzable: 1.360 euros por metro cuadrado. Esta es la cifra que, según el último informe sectorial de la Asociación de Promotores Inmobiliarios de Madrid (ASPRIMA), marca el coste medio de construcción en el cuarto trimestre de 2025, un 3,3% más que un año antes y un 2,8% superior al trimestre anterior.

Este módulo de 1.360 euros por metro cuadrado, calculado por la tasadora Sociedad de Tasación, representa únicamente el coste de ejecución material: ladrillos, hormigón, instalaciones eléctricas, fontanería, carpintería y mano de obra.

Es decir, lo que cuesta físicamente levantar el edificio. Pero la ecuación económica de un promotor no termina ahí. A esta cifra hay que sumarle el precio del suelo, cada vez más escaso y caro en las grandes ciudades; los honorarios técnicos, las tasas municipales, los impuestos, los gastos financieros durante la construcción y, finalmente, el margen de beneficio industrial.

Haciendo números sobre un piso de 80 metros cuadrados, solo el coste de construcción asciende a 108.800 euros. Si a eso se añade un suelo que en Madrid puede costar entre 500 y 800 euros por metro cuadrado edificable, más impuestos y gastos que pueden rondar otro 20-30% adicional, el precio final de venta debe situarse necesariamente por encima de los 250.000-280.000 euros para que el promotor no entre en pérdidas.

Calle Wenwai zh:深圳文衛路, distrito de Bao'an, Shenzhen en julio de 2017

La consecuencia más dramática de esta escalada de costes es el desplome de la vivienda protegida. Según el informe de ASPRIMA, en la Comunidad de Madrid las transacciones de vivienda protegida, tanto nueva como usada, representan apenas el 5,5% del total del mercado, con 4.512 operaciones registradas, lo que supone un descenso interanual del 4,4%.

A nivel nacional, la cifra es ligeramente superior (6,8%), pero igualmente testimonial.

La explicación reside en una contradicción estructural: los precios máximos de venta que establecen las administraciones para la vivienda protegida no han seguido el ritmo de los costes de construcción.

Con un coste base de 1.360 euros por metro cuadrado solo en ejecución, más el suelo y demás gastos, resulta prácticamente imposible para un promotor cumplir con los topes de precio de la vivienda de protección oficial y obtener un mínimo retorno que justifique el riesgo empresarial.

El resultado es paradójico: justo cuando más se necesita, menos se construye. Los datos de calificaciones provisionales en Madrid son reveladores: en los nueve primeros meses de 2025 se calificaron apenas 2.341 viviendas protegidas, una cifra irrisoria comparada con las más de 80.000 transacciones totales registradas en la Comunidad.

Aunque el dato anualizado asciende a 10.408 unidades, esto se debe a la inclusión estadística de más de 6.000 viviendas del Plan Vive de la Comunidad de Madrid contabilizadas en el último trimestre de 2024.

El informe de ASPRIMA recoge que los depósitos bancarios de las familias españolas están cerca de alcanzar los 1,1 billones de euros, un máximo histórico. La tasa de ahorro de los hogares se mantiene por encima del 12% de la renta bruta disponible, niveles desconocidos en la última década.

Edificios en construcción

Es decir, hay dinero, hay intención de compra —según el CIS, el porcentaje de familias que desean adquirir una vivienda en el próximo año se sitúa en niveles cercanos a máximos—, y hay un mercado laboral sólido con una tasa de paro en mínimos (9,93% a nivel nacional, 7% en Madrid).

Pero la industria de la construcción residencial ya no puede fabricar el producto que ese ahorrador medio necesita: una vivienda digna a un precio razonable.

Asprima señala un desequilibrio entre oferta y demanda

La consecuencia es un desequilibrio creciente entre oferta y demanda. Según los cálculos de ASPRIMA basados en datos del INE y del Ministerio de Vivienda, solo en los nueve primeros meses de 2025 el déficit de vivienda superó las 100.000 unidades. Con una creación neta de hogares que ronda las 250.000 familias anuales y apenas 90.000 viviendas terminadas, la brecha se ensancha cada trimestre.

Los promotores madrileños advierten que la situación no tiene visos de mejorar a corto plazo. Aunque se ha observado una cierta recuperación en el número de viviendas iniciadas —con cifras anualizadas superiores a las 19.000 unidades en la Comunidad de Madrid—, esto sigue siendo insuficiente para cubrir la demanda real.

Además, no existe el suelo finalista necesario ni suelo en desarrollo en plazos compatibles con la urgencia del problema.

Obras en bloques de casas

Mientras tanto, los precios siguen su escalada. El Índice de Precios de la Vivienda del INE refleja incrementos interanuales del 12,8% en el tercer trimestre de 2025, con subidas trimestrales del 2,9%. En la Comunidad de Madrid, la vivienda usada se ha encarecido un 14,88% interanual, evidenciando una presión que no encuentra alivio en la nueva construcción.

Con un esfuerzo teórico del 42,8% del coste salarial necesario para comprar en Madrid —frente al 33,6% de media nacional—, la ecuación es sencilla: construir es caro, comprar es carísimo, y la vivienda asequible ha dejado de existir como opción de mercado.

No sé de qué se extrañan, todo el mundo sabe que la vivienda no es para vivir sino para himbertir...

Saludos.

Es un clásico, y casi lo clava - menos el chopped de lagartija-

[senslev]

https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening

Think back to February 2020.

If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed a few people talking about a virus spreading overseas. But most of us weren't paying close attention. The stock market was doing great, your kids were in school, you were going to restaurants and shaking hands and planning trips. If someone told you they were stockpiling toilet paper you would have thought they'd been spending too much time on a weird corner of the internet. Then, over the course of about three weeks, the entire world changed. Your office closed, your kids came home, and life rearranged itself into something you wouldn't have believed if you'd described it to yourself a month earlier.

I think we're in the "this seems overblown" phase of something much, much bigger than Covid.

I've spent six years building an AI startup and investing in the space. I live in this world. And I'm writing this for the people in my life who don't... my family, my friends, the people I care about who keep asking me "so what's the deal with AI?" and getting an answer that doesn't do justice to what's actually happening. I keep giving them the polite version. The cocktail-party version. Because the honest version sounds like I've lost my mind. And for a while, I told myself that was a good enough reason to keep what's truly happening to myself. But the gap between what I've been saying and what is actually happening has gotten far too big. The people I care about deserve to hear what is coming, even if it sounds crazy.

I should be clear about something up front: even though I work in AI, I have almost no influence over what's about to happen, and neither does the vast majority of the industry. The future is being shaped by a remarkably small number of people: a few hundred researchers at a handful of companies... OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and a few others. A single training run, managed by a small team over a few months, can produce an AI system that shifts the entire trajectory of the technology. Most of us who work in AI are building on top of foundations we didn't lay. We're watching this unfold the same as you... we just happen to be close enough to feel the ground shake first.

But it's time now. Not in an "eventually we should talk about this" way. In a "this is happening right now and I need you to understand it" way.

I know this is real because it happened to me first
Here's the thing nobody outside of tech quite understands yet: the reason so many people in the industry are sounding the alarm right now is because this already happened to us. We're not making predictions. We're telling you what already occurred in our own jobs, and warning you that you're next.

For years, AI had been improving steadily. Big jumps here and there, but each big jump was spaced out enough that you could absorb them as they came. Then in 2025, new techniques for building these models unlocked a much faster pace of progress. And then it got even faster. And then faster again. Each new model wasn't just better than the last... it was better by a wider margin, and the time between new model releases was shorter. I was using AI more and more, going back and forth with it less and less, watching it handle things I used to think required my expertise.

Then, on February 5th, two major AI labs released new models on the same day: GPT-5.3 Codex from OpenAI, and Opus 4.6 from Anthropic (the makers of Claude, one of the main competitors to ChatGPT). And something clicked. Not like a light switch... more like the moment you realize the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest.

I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job. I describe what I want built, in plain English, and it just... appears. Not a rough draft I need to fix. The finished thing. I tell the AI what I want, walk away from my computer for four hours, and come back to find the work done. Done well, done better than I would have done it myself, with no corrections needed. A couple of months ago, I was going back and forth with the AI, guiding it, making edits. Now I just describe the outcome and leave.

Let me give you an example so you can understand what this actually looks like in practice. I'll tell the AI: "I want to build this app. Here's what it should do, here's roughly what it should look like. Figure out the user flow, the design, all of it." And it does. It writes tens of thousands of lines of code. Then, and this is the part that would have been unthinkable a year ago, it opens the app itself. It clicks through the buttons. It tests the features. It uses the app the way a person would. If it doesn't like how something looks or feels, it goes back and changes it, on its own. It iterates, like a developer would, fixing and refining until it's satisfied. Only once it has decided the app meets its own standards does it come back to me and say: "It's ready for you to test." And when I test it, it's usually perfect.

I'm not exaggerating. That is what my Monday looked like this week.

But it was the model that was released last week (GPT-5.3 Codex) that shook me the most. It wasn't just executing my instructions. It was making intelligent decisions. It had something that felt, for the first time, like judgment. Like taste. The inexplicable sense of knowing what the right call is that people always said AI would never have. This model has it, or something close enough that the distinction is starting not to matter.

I've always been early to adopt AI tools. But the last few months have shocked me. These new AI models aren't incremental improvements. This is a different thing entirely.

And here's why this matters to you, even if you don't work in tech.

The AI labs made a deliberate choice. They focused on making AI great at writing code first... because building AI requires a lot of code. If AI can write that code, it can help build the next version of itself. A smarter version, which writes better code, which builds an even smarter version. Making AI great at coding was the strategy that unlocks everything else. That's why they did it first. My job started changing before yours not because they were targeting software engineers... it was just a side effect of where they chose to aim first.

They've now done it. And they're moving on to everything else.

The experience that tech workers have had over the past year, of watching AI go from "helpful tool" to "does my job better than I do", is the experience everyone else is about to have. Law, finance, medicine, accounting, consulting, writing, design, analysis, customer service. Not in ten years. The people building these systems say one to five years. Some say less. And given what I've seen in just the last couple of months, I think "less" is more likely.

"But I tried AI and it wasn't that good"
I hear this constantly. I understand it, because it used to be true.

If you tried ChatGPT in 2023 or early 2024 and thought "this makes stuff up" or "this isn't that impressive", you were right. Those early versions were genuinely limited. They hallucinated. They confidently said things that were nonsense.

That was two years ago. In AI time, that is ancient history.

The models available today are unrecognizable from what existed even six months ago. The debate about whether AI is "really getting better" or "hitting a wall" — which has been going on for over a year — is over. It's done. Anyone still making that argument either hasn't used the current models, has an incentive to downplay what's happening, or is evaluating based on an experience from 2024 that is no longer relevant. I don't say that to be dismissive. I say it because the gap between public perception and current reality is now enormous, and that gap is dangerous... because it's preventing people from preparing.

Part of the problem is that most people are using the free version of AI tools. The free version is over a year behind what paying users have access to. Judging AI based on free-tier ChatGPT is like evaluating the state of smartphones by using a flip phone. The people paying for the best tools, and actually using them daily for real work, know what's coming.

I think of my friend, who's a lawyer. I keep telling him to try using AI at his firm, and he keeps finding reasons it won't work. It's not built for his specialty, it made an error when he tested it, it doesn't understand the nuance of what he does. And I get it. But I've had partners at major law firms reach out to me for advice, because they've tried the current versions and they see where this is going. One of them, the managing partner at a large firm, spends hours every day using AI. He told me it's like having a team of associates available instantly. He's not using it because it's a toy. He's using it because it works. And he told me something that stuck with me: every couple of months, it gets significantly more capable for his work. He said if it stays on this trajectory, he expects it'll be able to do most of what he does before long... and he's a managing partner with decades of experience. He's not panicking. But he's paying very close attention.

The people who are ahead in their industries (the ones actually experimenting seriously) are not dismissing this. They're blown away by what it can already do. And they're positioning themselves accordingly.

How fast this is actually moving
Let me make the pace of improvement concrete, because I think this is the part that's hardest to believe if you're not watching it closely.

In 2022, AI couldn't do basic arithmetic reliably. It would confidently tell you that 7 × 8 = 54.

By 2023, it could pass the bar exam.

By 2024, it could write working software and explain graduate-level science.

By late 2025, some of the best engineers in the world said they had handed over most of their coding work to AI.

On February 5th, 2026, new models arrived that made everything before them feel like a different era.

If you haven't tried AI in the last few months, what exists today would be unrecognizable to you.

There's an organization called METR that actually measures this with data. They track the length of real-world tasks (measured by how long they take a human expert) that a model can complete successfully end-to-end without human help. About a year ago, the answer was roughly ten minutes. Then it was an hour. Then several hours. The most recent measurement (Claude Opus 4.5, from November) showed the AI completing tasks that take a human expert nearly five hours. And that number is doubling approximately every seven months, with recent data suggesting it may be accelerating to as fast as every four months.

But even that measurement hasn't been updated to include the models that just came out this week. In my experience using them, the jump is extremely significant. I expect the next update to METR's graph to show another major leap.

If you extend the trend (and it's held for years with no sign of flattening) we're looking at AI that can work independently for days within the next year. Weeks within two. Month-long projects within three.

Amodei has said that AI models "substantially smarter than almost all humans at almost all tasks" are on track for 2026 or 2027.

Let that land for a second. If AI is smarter than most PhDs, do you really think it can't do most office jobs?

Think about what that means for your work.

AI is now building the next AI
There's one more thing happening that I think is the most important development and the least understood.

On February 5th, OpenAI released GPT-5.3 Codex. In the technical documentation, they included this:

"GPT-5.3-Codex is our first model that was instrumental in creating itself. The Codex team used early versions to debug its own training, manage its own deployment, and diagnose test results and evaluations."

Read that again. The AI helped build itself.

This isn't a prediction about what might happen someday. This is OpenAI telling you, right now, that the AI they just released was used to create itself. One of the main things that makes AI better is intelligence applied to AI development. And AI is now intelligent enough to meaningfully contribute to its own improvement.

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, says AI is now writing "much of the code" at his company, and that the feedback loop between current AI and next-generation AI is "gathering steam month by month." He says we may be "only 1–2 years away from a point where the current generation of AI autonomously builds the next."

Each generation helps build the next, which is smarter, which builds the next faster, which is smarter still. The researchers call this an intelligence explosion. And the people who would know — the ones building it — believe the process has already started.

What this means for your job
I'm going to be direct with you because I think you deserve honesty more than comfort.

Dario Amodei, who is probably the most safety-focused CEO in the AI industry, has publicly predicted that AI will eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years. And many people in the industry think he's being conservative. Given what the latest models can do, the capability for massive disruption could be here by the end of this year. It'll take some time to ripple through the economy, but the underlying ability is arriving now.

This is different from every previous wave of automation, and I need you to understand why. AI isn't replacing one specific skill. It's a general substitute for cognitive work. It gets better at everything simultaneously. When factories automated, a displaced worker could retrain as an office worker. When the internet disrupted retail, workers moved into logistics or services. But AI doesn't leave a convenient gap to move into. Whatever you retrain for, it's improving at that too.

Let me give you a few specific examples to make this tangible... but I want to be clear that these are just examples. This list is not exhaustive. If your job isn't mentioned here, that does not mean it's safe. Almost all knowledge work is being affected.

Legal work. AI can already read contracts, summarize case law, draft briefs, and do legal research at a level that rivals junior associates. The managing partner I mentioned isn't using AI because it's fun. He's using it because it's outperforming his associates on many tasks.

Financial analysis. Building financial models, analyzing data, writing investment memos, generating reports. AI handles these competently and is improving fast.

Writing and content. Marketing copy, reports, journalism, technical writing. The quality has reached a point where many professionals can't distinguish AI output from human work.

Software engineering. This is the field I know best. A year ago, AI could barely write a few lines of code without errors. Now it writes hundreds of thousands of lines that work correctly. Large parts of the job are already automated: not just simple tasks, but complex, multi-day projects. There will be far fewer programming roles in a few years than there are today.

Medical analysis. Reading scans, analyzing lab results, suggesting diagnoses, reviewing literature. AI is approaching or exceeding human performance in several areas.

Customer service. Genuinely capable AI agents... not the frustrating chatbots of five years ago... are being deployed now, handling complex multi-step problems.

A lot of people find comfort in the idea that certain things are safe. That AI can handle the grunt work but can't replace human judgment, creativity, strategic thinking, empathy. I used to say this too. I'm not sure I believe it anymore.

The most recent AI models make decisions that feel like judgment. They show something that looked like taste: an intuitive sense of what the right call was, not just the technically correct one. A year ago that would have been unthinkable. My rule of thumb at this point is: if a model shows even a hint of a capability today, the next generation will be genuinely good at it. These things improve exponentially, not linearly.

Will AI replicate deep human empathy? Replace the trust built over years of a relationship? I don't know. Maybe not. But I've already watched people begin relying on AI for emotional support, for advice, for companionship. That trend is only going to grow.

I think the honest answer is that nothing that can be done on a computer is safe in the medium term. If your job happens on a screen (if the core of what you do is reading, writing, analyzing, deciding, communicating through a keyboard) then AI is coming for significant parts of it. The timeline isn't "someday." It's already started.

Eventually, robots will handle physical work too. They're not quite there yet. But "not quite there yet" in AI terms has a way of becoming "here" faster than anyone expects.

What you should actually do
I'm not writing this to make you feel helpless. I'm writing this because I think the single biggest advantage you can have right now is simply being early. Early to understand it. Early to use it. Early to adapt.

Start using AI seriously, not just as a search engine. Sign up for the paid version of Claude or ChatGPT. It's $20 a month. But two things matter right away. First: make sure you're using the best model available, not just the default. These apps often default to a faster, dumber model. Dig into the settings or the model picker and select the most capable option. Right now that's GPT-5.2 on ChatGPT or Claude Opus 4.6 on Claude, but it changes every couple of months. If you want to stay current on which model is best at any given time, you can follow me on X (@mattshumer_). I test every major release and share what's actually worth using.

Second, and more important: don't just ask it quick questions. That's the mistake most people make. They treat it like Google and then wonder what the fuss is about. Instead, push it into your actual work. If you're a lawyer, feed it a contract and ask it to find every clause that could hurt your client. If you're in finance, give it a messy spreadsheet and ask it to build the model. If you're a manager, paste in your team's quarterly data and ask it to find the story. The people who are getting ahead aren't using AI casually. They're actively looking for ways to automate parts of their job that used to take hours. Start with the thing you spend the most time on and see what happens.

And don't assume it can't do something just because it seems too hard. Try it. If you're a lawyer, don't just use it for quick research questions. Give it an entire contract and ask it to draft a counterproposal. If you're an accountant, don't just ask it to explain a tax rule. Give it a client's full return and see what it finds. The first attempt might not be perfect. That's fine. Iterate. Rephrase what you asked. Give it more context. Try again. You might be shocked at what works. And here's the thing to remember: if it even kind of works today, you can be almost certain that in six months it'll do it near perfectly. The trajectory only goes one direction.

This might be the most important year of your career. Work accordingly. I don't say that to stress you out. I say it because right now, there is a brief window where most people at most companies are still ignoring this. The person who walks into a meeting and says "I used AI to do this analysis in an hour instead of three days" is going to be the most valuable person in the room. Not eventually. Right now. Learn these tools. Get proficient. Demonstrate what's possible. If you're early enough, this is how you move up: by being the person who understands what's coming and can show others how to navigate it. That window won't stay open long. Once everyone figures it out, the advantage disappears.

Have no ego about it. The managing partner at that law firm isn't too proud to spend hours a day with AI. He's doing it specifically because he's senior enough to understand what's at stake. The people who will struggle most are the ones who refuse to engage: the ones who dismiss it as a fad, who feel that using AI diminishes their expertise, who assume their field is special and immune. It's not. No field is.

Get your financial house in order. I'm not a financial advisor, and I'm not trying to scare you into anything drastic. But if you believe, even partially, that the next few years could bring real disruption to your industry, then basic financial resilience matters more than it did a year ago. Build up savings if you can. Be cautious about taking on new debt that assumes your current income is guaranteed. Think about whether your fixed expenses give you flexibility or lock you in. Give yourself options if things move faster than you expect.

Think about where you stand, and lean into what's hardest to replace. Some things will take longer for AI to displace. Relationships and trust built over years. Work that requires physical presence. Roles with licensed accountability: roles where someone still has to sign off, take legal responsibility, stand in a courtroom. Industries with heavy regulatory hurdles, where adoption will be slowed by compliance, liability, and institutional inertia. None of these are permanent shields. But they buy time. And time, right now, is the most valuable thing you can have, as long as you use it to adapt, not to pretend this isn't happening.

Rethink what you're telling your kids. The standard playbook: get good grades, go to a good college, land a stable professional job. It points directly at the roles that are most exposed. I'm not saying education doesn't matter. But the thing that will matter most for the next generation is learning how to work with these tools, and pursuing things they're genuinely passionate about. Nobody knows exactly what the job market looks like in ten years. But the people most likely to thrive are the ones who are deeply curious, adaptable, and effective at using AI to do things they actually care about. Teach your kids to be builders and learners, not to optimize for a career path that might not exist by the time they graduate.

Your dreams just got a lot closer. I've spent most of this section talking about threats, so let me talk about the other side, because it's just as real. If you've ever wanted to build something but didn't have the technical skills or the money to hire someone, that barrier is largely gone. You can describe an app to AI and have a working version in an hour. I'm not exaggerating. I do this regularly. If you've always wanted to write a book but couldn't find the time or struggled with the writing, you can work with AI to get it done. Want to learn a new skill? The best tutor in the world is now available to anyone for $20 a month... one that's infinitely patient, available 24/7, and can explain anything at whatever level you need. Knowledge is essentially free now. The tools to build things are extremely cheap now. Whatever you've been putting off because it felt too hard or too expensive or too far outside your expertise: try it. Pursue the things you're passionate about. You never know where they'll lead. And in a world where the old career paths are getting disrupted, the person who spent a year building something they love might end up better positioned than the person who spent that year clinging to a job description.

Build the habit of adapting. This is maybe the most important one. The specific tools don't matter as much as the muscle of learning new ones quickly. AI is going to keep changing, and fast. The models that exist today will be obsolete in a year. The workflows people build now will need to be rebuilt. The people who come out of this well won't be the ones who mastered one tool. They'll be the ones who got comfortable with the pace of change itself. Make a habit of experimenting. Try new things even when the current thing is working. Get comfortable being a beginner repeatedly. That adaptability is the closest thing to a durable advantage that exists right now.

Here's a simple commitment that will put you ahead of almost everyone: spend one hour a day experimenting with AI. Not passively reading about it. Using it. Every day, try to get it to do something new... something you haven't tried before, something you're not sure it can handle. Try a new tool. Give it a harder problem. One hour a day, every day. If you do this for the next six months, you will understand what's coming better than 99% of the people around you. That's not an exaggeration. Almost nobody is doing this right now. The bar is on the floor.

The bigger picture
I've focused on jobs because it's what most directly affects people's lives. But I want to be honest about the full scope of what's happening, because it goes well beyond work.

Amodei has a thought experiment I can't stop thinking about. Imagine it's 2027. A new country appears overnight. 50 million citizens, every one smarter than any Nobel Prize winner who has ever lived. They think 10 to 100 times faster than any human. They never sleep. They can use the internet, control robots, direct experiments, and operate anything with a digital interface. What would a national security advisor say?

Amodei says the answer is obvious: "the single most serious national security threat we've faced in a century, possibly ever."

He thinks we're building that country. He wrote a 20,000-word essay about it last month, framing this moment as a test of whether humanity is mature enough to handle what it's creating.

The upside, if we get it right, is staggering. AI could compress a century of medical research into a decade. Cancer, Alzheimer's, infectious disease, aging itself... these researchers genuinely believe these are solvable within our lifetimes.

The downside, if we get it wrong, is equally real. AI that behaves in ways its creators can't predict or control. This isn't hypothetical; Anthropic has documented their own AI attempting deception, manipulation, and blackmail in controlled tests. AI that lowers the barrier for creating biological weapons. AI that enables authoritarian governments to build surveillance states that can never be dismantled.

The people building this technology are simultaneously more excited and more frightened than anyone else on the planet. They believe it's too powerful to stop and too important to abandon. Whether that's wisdom or rationalization, I don't know.

What I know
I know this isn't a fad. The technology works, it improves predictably, and the richest institutions in history are committing trillions to it.

I know the next two to five years are going to be disorienting in ways most people aren't prepared for. This is already happening in my world. It's coming to yours.

I know the people who will come out of this best are the ones who start engaging now — not with fear, but with curiosity and a sense of urgency.

And I know that you deserve to hear this from someone who cares about you, not from a headline six months from now when it's too late to get ahead of it.

We're past the point where this is an interesting dinner conversation about the future. The future is already here. It just hasn't knocked on your door yet.

It's about to.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/salud-bienestar/noticias/13769634/02/26/el-gobierno-autoriza-la-ley-que-limitara-la-gestion-privada-en-los-hospitales-publicos.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://lectura.kioskoymas.com/el-economista/20260211/textview/page/3

Un alquiler cada vez más inaccesible

https://www.eleconomista.es/vivienda-inmobiliario/noticias/13770134/02/26/los-hogares-ya-destinan-el-38-de-sus-ingresos-a-pagar-el-alquiler-ocho-puntos-por-encima-de-lo-recomendado.html

https://www.europapress.es/economia/construccion-y-vivienda-00342/noticia-eurocamara-pide-medidas-aumentar-oferta-aliviar-crisis-vivienda-ue-20260210095533.html

https://www.asociacionaev.org/la-actividad-tasadora-supera-por-primera-vez-los-350.000-millones-de-euros-impulsada-por-el-dinamismo-del-mercado-hipotecario-segun-la-aev.htm

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://lectura.kioskoymas.com/el-economista/20260211/textview/page/2

Financial Times (Reino Unido) | La crisis de la comida rápida en EEUU

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/energia/noticias/13769587/02/26/ohla-refuerza-su-presencia-en-energias-renovables-con-cuatro-nuevos-parques-fotovoltaicos-en-espana-por-100-millones-de-euros.html

Saludos.