In his blog post, The End of the Office, Andrew Yang paints a very dire picture but one that I think must be seriously considered. I think Yang’s fifth point is most important:

Pessimism and anger will rise up. I saw a note on social media that said, “Do you really think politicians will let millions lose their jobs? They’ll ban AI first.” Has this person been paying attention? Go talk to the manufacturing workers or the journalists and see how it worked out. Hundreds of billions of dollars have not been spent on this technology for corporate juggernauts to stop now, and most officials have been cheerleading what they see as progress. The genie is out of the bottle.

The social contract of ‘study hard, go to school, get a good job, live a decent life’ is about to be vaporized to smithereens. Upward mobility for most will be a thing of the past. People are not going to take it well. Particularly educated people who think that they deserve better. That’s an ingredient for revolt.

What Yang describes has been happening for the last several decades and the wealthy class embrace of AI will accelerate the process. I fear the consequences significant. A society built on consumption is really built on employment because one must be employed to earn the money to spend on the products to be consumed. Worse is that how we define people has good or bad, successful or unsuccessful is defined by employment. Think of Ronald Reagan and the “welfare queen." Think of the ongoing war between the wealthy class and wealth redistribution put in place under FDR that contributed to forming the middle class in the United States.

We will need to redefine employment in the United States, such as less than a 40 hour work week, decouple fundamental necessity of healthcare from employment, and change how we define and measure success.