A popular early retirement strategy in the FIRE movement could be derailed by AI, one investing pro says - Business Insider

Ah, the FIRE movement — where people dream of quitting their soul-crushing corporate jobs by 40, only to discover that AI might just beat them to the punch. Nick Maggiulli, the COO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, has graciously pointed out that Coast FIRE — the strategy where you save aggressively early, then 'coast' in lower-stress jobs until retirement — is about as reliable as a ChatGPT-generated investment plan in an AI-disrupted job market. Because nothing says 'financial independence' like watching the 'coasting' part of your plan get automated out from under you while you're still paying off the mortgage.

Maggiulli's warning hinges on the charmingly specific scenario that AI will 'eat away at white-collar job security' — you know, the very jobs people were counting on to provide that stable, low-pressure income during their coasting years. It's the financial equivalent of building your retirement plan on quicksand, then being surprised when it sinks. The article notes that Coast FIRE relies on 'continued employment in some capacity,' which AI seems hell-bent on redefining as 'continued unemployment with occasional gig work.' One can almost hear the collective sigh from millennials who thought they'd cracked the code, only to find the code is being rewritten by a language model.

So here we are: another financial strategy rendered obsolete before it even became mainstream, thanks to the relentless march of silicon. It's almost poetic — people meticulously calculate their 'coast number,' only to have an algorithm calculate their redundancy. Maggiulli didn't specify which white-collar roles are most at risk, but given the track record, it's probably the ones involving spreadsheets, writing, or any task that doesn't require physical presence. The FIRE movement's mantra of 'save now, relax later' is morphing into 'save now, panic later' — because the 'later' job market might not exist in the form you planned. Cheers to forward planning.