The ATM parable did a specific job for a specific era: it gave economists a ready-made argument against catastrophism, a historical precedent they could cite when the question of automation came up. The argument was not wrong about ATMs. It was wrong about the assumption that the same dynamics would govern AI — that the speed of replacement, the specificity of the roles targeted, and the simultaneity across industries would follow the same gradual arc that let new job categories absorb displaced workers before the damage compounded. The economists now…