Behind the Curtain: The ever-growing AI inequality gap
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Good news: U.S. tech companies are attacking the AI race like a modern Manhattan Project — spending unfathomable money and time to beat China to superintelligence.
- Bad news: The U.S. government, even if it weren't shut down, is doing nothing to prepare Americans for the coming, in some areas already-unfolding, economic and jobs shock.
Why it matters: The gap between the AI giants, employees and investors and ordinary Americans is growing by the month. This gap, if it persists, will increasingly define American political debate in the coming months and years.
"This is an enormously transformational moment," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told Axios' Alex Thompson on "The Axios Show."
- "Do I think that the American people and Congress have begun to even discuss the implications of this? I don't."
Elon Musk, an AI architect and optimist, and Sanders, an AI skeptic, agree about little. But both are warning that AI-powered robots could soon take so many jobs, America might need to pay U.S. workers not to work.
- "AI and robots will replace all jobs," Musk wrote on X this week. "Working will be optional, like growing your own vegetables, instead of buying them from the store." Yes, Musk is mass-producing robots at Tesla, so he has reason to hype the possibility. But he's also been right on many of the modern tech shifts.
- Sanders agrees. "I don't often agree with Elon Musk, but I fear that he may be right when he says, 'AI and robots will replace all jobs,'" the senator wrote on X. "So what happens to workers who have no jobs and no income?"
Between the lines: This isn't a hypothetical fear. Amazon, in a board meeting last year, discussed using robots instead of adding humans as sales rise — which could translate to 600,000+ people Amazon won't need to hire, the New York Times reports.
- And it's not a distant future, either: the Times says Amazon's automation gurus believe they can avoid hiring as many as 160,000 people by 2027, just for starters.
The big picture: Yes, robots, superintelligence and paying people not to work are all hypotheticals right now. But all three are hot topics: AI companies are burning through unprecedented sums of investment in order to will human-exceeding intelligence into quick existence.
- What's not debatable is how AI and AI-adjacent investment are propping up the U.S. economy. AI accounts for the vast majority of stock market growth, private investment and new infrastructure projects, like data centers. So the rich are getting a lot richer, and are positioned to get even richer if AI hits superintelligence.
But most Americans aren't big investors in the stock market, and definitely aren't privy to secondary investments in private AI companies like OpenAI. Those outside of AI are experiencing higher prices for staples like energy and tougher times finding jobs, especially entry-level ones for college grads.
- Therein lies the tension that everyone from Sanders, on the left, to Steve Bannon, on the right, believes could cause a revolt among the working class — and shake up politics. If AI reaches its potential, but U.S. workers stagnate or suffer, tensions will surely rise. The working class, the backbone of the Trump coalition, would suffer most, Bannon warns.
- That's the current trajectory. President Trump and Congress have no interest in regulating AI. And most politicians aren't eager to scare voters by telling them robots or AI could wipe away their jobs in a few years, even if they think it's true.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs could be wiped away in five years, and unemployment could hit 20%. Trump's AI czar, David Sacks, hit back at "Doomer narratives." Congress shrugged.
- Given Trump's vow to win the AI race, and the indifference or ineffectiveness of Congress, it's likely AI will keep growing more powerful with little national preparation for the consequences.
Go deeper ... "Behind the Curtain: America's energy jam."
