This article continues the discussion I started in my previous piece, The Consequences of the Mass Adoption of AI and Robotics for the Average Person, where I looked at how AI and automation could change the economic value of human labor. Here, I want to focus on the next question: if large numbers of people…
If we set aside the promotional optimism of technology companies and apocalyptic fantasies, I see the main risk of the near future not in the idea that “AI will destroy humanity,” but in the fact that it may very quickly change the economic value of the average person.
If robots are coming for work, elder care is where they’ll arrive first—not because it’s glamorous, but because no one else is left.
Humanoid robots are marching across our feeds again. China shows factories staffed by chrome-faced workers who never blink, never sleep, never join unions. Startups in the US and Europe film glossy demos, and the public reacts with a familiar mix of excitement and panic: “This is it. This is how the machines take over.”
