AI Arms Race Sparks Fears of Job Replacement Across Industries

As the AI arms race intensifies, with major technology companies integrating AI into virtually every industry, concerns are growing about the potential for AI to replace human jobs. This includes roles such as doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, financial analysts, and writers. The fear is that as AI takes over these professions, individuals will struggle to earn a living.

This situation is not unprecedented. Historically, similar fears arose during the industrial age with the introduction of mechanized looms and knitting frames. The Luddites, a group of British workers, protested against these machines, fearing they would lose their livelihoods. While their protests may have provided short-term relief, they were not a sustainable long-term strategy. The mechanized looms eventually prevailed in the marketplace.

More recently, Amazon faced similar protests when it introduced robots to automate its warehouse operations. Employees feared that these robots would replace their jobs, echoing the concerns of the Luddites. However, history has shown that adaptation to new technologies is the key to survival and progress.

In the current stage of AI development, we are witnessing the final phase of a fully automated information age. This shift brings an end to the labor-driven economy and ushers in a new era where algorithms and AI agents take over the burden of labor. This transition creates uncertainty about what will replace labor as the primary means of monetization.

One proposed solution is Universal Basic Income (UBI), which aims to provide a basic income to all individuals regardless of their employment status. However, UBI has not been practical outside of small pilot programs because it does not account for the human desire for incentivization and hierarchies.

To address these challenges, a new concept called the Intellect Economy is proposed. This economy focuses on the deployment of technology and who is deploying it, rather than the technology itself. The fears surrounding AI are not about the technology but about how those with economic power exploit it to create greater economic imbalance.

As a means of protection, a different kind of UBI is proposed: Universal Baseline Intellect. This concept ensures that the value of intellectual input into new systems is properly attributed, not just on the output. It is essential to create full buy-in across industries at all levels to sustain this new economy.

In building a new economy with new priorities, it is crucial to ensure that individuals retain the right to the usage and monetization of their own intellectual property. Decentralization offers an effective means of ensuring ownership belongs to the original possessor, with the ability to monetize every type of intellectual asset in the digital space. This prioritizes an Intellect Economy where personal AI agents that learn from human experience are owned by that human, creating earning opportunities on an ongoing basis.

As we transition to a post-agentic, post-web world, shifting from attention-based to intention-driven systems, solutions are needed to ensure humans remain at the center of intelligence. If achieved, the fears around AI can turn into hopes of liberating humanity from the chains of useless labor and toward a better and more enlightened form of intellectual value creation.