So far, there hasn't been an AI revolution, any more than there was a Segway or an NFT revolution.
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
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For enthusiasts, AI promises to usher in something that socialists have long dreamed of: a world without scarcity in which human beings can move finally from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.
Like many problems techbros try to solve, this is a problem of politics and social organization, not technology. We have had the technology to free the entire human population from several fundamental scarcities for decades (food and housing most prominently, but also many diseases), but the groups with the resources to do so actively choose not to solve those problems. Mostly because they are antisocial psychopathic billionaires.
It's like global malnutrition/hunger, it's not that we don't have enough food (I believe total global calorie per capita per day output might be significantly above the recommended 2,500 or so calories); it's the distribution where the problem lies.
Which to OPs point is a socio-political problem. We have the technology and means to distribute it globally, or ensure it’s created closer to the need, it’s just not being done.
In reality things are becoming more scarce because of AI and I‘m afraid we‘ve only scratched the surface. And all that when we barely have any actual use cases for it.
But they promised me that the Regurgitation Engine would solve all problems!
I'm not sure there's any more depressing climax I could imagine to this story:
While the talk of eradicating friction or even rents suggests a “freeing up” of capital for more productive investment, given services would follow manufacturing into a realm of hyperproductive overcapacity, there would seem to be no upside to the euthanasia of the rentier in this instance.
Rather than “free up” business, this development would destroy it. Capital may well be a parasite, but in the absence of revolutionary pressure it is still work-producing. Our jobs might be bullsh-t, but without them there is only unemployment and (even more) poverty.
For most people it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art
- Ursula K Le Guin
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin
And art is being destroyed by AI
Those are very different things though.
And one can argue that how people imagine the end of the world is probably shaped works of art/media.
Yea … it’s the bit I don’t get why people don’t care about this more.
If we’re replaced, there’s nothing really left for us in the terms of the way we’ve conceived our whole world for centuries. Sure maybe we go native again or something, but let’s be real, that is a massively tough transition even if it’s viable.
AI revolution, not likely. more like AI age of degeneracy.