History shows that transformative technologies—the industrial revolution, electricity, the internet—create massive long-term value. However, they also render the skills of one to two generations of workers obsolete, leading to widespread career and economic disruption for those individuals before their grandchildren reap the benefits.

History's major technological shifts—industrialization, electrification, the internet—each wiped out the careers of one to two generations. Those workers suffered while their grandchildren benefited. AI is likely to repeat this pattern, creating a generational chasm between those who lose and those who gain.

Using the historical analogy of agriculture, a massive productivity boom from AI could make society wealthier by creating an abundance of goods and services. However, this same abundance can crash prices, potentially ruining the very businesses that created the technology and causing significant job displacement, even as society as a whole benefits.

Automation alone is insufficient for shared prosperity. Acemoglu argues that while automation is good for eliminating undesirable tasks, true economic progress requires a parallel focus on creating new, more complex tasks where human labor can be redeployed and find new opportunities.

The biggest near-term automation threat isn't from super-intelligent AI, but from mediocre "boring bots." This "so-so automation" is just good enough to displace human workers but fails to generate the significant economic gains seen in past technological revolutions, creating a net drag on the economy.

AI's impact on labor will likely follow a deceptive curve: an initial boost in productivity as it augments human workers, followed by a crash as it masters their domains and replaces them entirely. This creates a false sense of security, delaying necessary policy responses.

Technological shifts can create a period where national productivity soars but real wages for skilled workers fall. We are in a modern 'Engels Pause,' similar to the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, which historically led to revolutions in ownership, education, and political power.

Past technological shifts occurred over decades, allowing labor markets to gradually adjust. AI's disruption is happening over years, a speed that historical models can't account for. This compressed timeline means new jobs and retraining won't happen fast enough, demanding immediate policy interventions like expanded capital ownership.

While technology historically creates more jobs than it destroys, this transition period can last 40-80 years. The individuals whose skills become obsolete rarely live to see the long-term economic recovery, experiencing lifelong financial hardship while only their grandchildren reap the benefits.