The AI Snake Oil argument, while compelling, arguably underestimates the disruptive potential of even incremental AI advances on specific job categories, regardless of a 'hard takeoff.' Its framework usefully shifts focus from an abstract, all-or-nothing existential threat to the concrete, messy process of economic adaptation, but the call for workers to build 'complementary skills' may gloss over the scale and pain of that transition. In our view, the most significant second-order effect of this line of thinking is political: by positioning the AI community as proactively managing, rather than passively awaiting, workforce impacts, it seeks to preempt a regulatory backlash that could arise if the industry is seen as indifferent to the labor market consequences of its own creations.