AI will inevitably cause mass, short-term job displacement. To prevent a depression from collapsed consumer spending, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is essential. It acts as a bridge, sustaining demand and allowing society to benefit from AI's productivity gains while new industries emerge.

The potential for an AI-driven, post-capitalist world of abundance is real. However, the path there will likely be as destructive as a world war, as the rapid upending of the economic order will throw society into chaos before stability is achieved.

For some policy experts, the most realistic nightmare scenario is not a rogue superintelligence but a socio-economic collapse into techno-feudalism. In this future, AI concentrates power and wealth, creating a rentier state with a small ruling class and a large population with minimal economic agency or purpose.

Just as oil wealth allows elites in some countries to ignore their populations, control over AI could empower a new elite to maintain power without cultivating human productivity, leading to societal decay and loss of democratic legitimacy.

Chinese policymakers champion AI as a key driver of economic productivity but appear to be underestimating its potential for social upheaval. There is little indication they are planning for the mass displacement of the gig economy workforce, who will be the first casualties of automation. This focus on technological gains over social safety nets creates a significant future political risk.

For current AI valuations to be realized, AI must deliver unprecedented efficiency, likely causing mass job displacement. This would disrupt the consumer economy that supports these companies, creating a fundamental contradiction where the condition for success undermines the system itself.

While AI may eventually create a world of abundance where energy and labor are free, the transition will be violent. The unprecedented scale of job displacement, coupled with a societal loss of meaning, will likely lead to significant bloodshed and social upheaval before any utopian endpoint is reached.

The most dangerous long-term impact of AI is not economic unemployment, but the stripping away of human meaning and purpose. As AI masters every valuable skill, it will disrupt the core human algorithm of contributing to the group, leading to a collective psychological crisis and societal decay.

By openly discussing AI-driven unemployment, tech leaders have made their industry the default scapegoat. If unemployment rises for any reason, even a normal recession, AI will be blamed, triggering severe political and social backlash because leaders have effectively "confessed to the crime" ahead of time.