{"id":592595,"date":"2026-05-19T14:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/592595\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T14:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:28:08","slug":"billionaires-are-trying-to-lull-us-into-ai-complacency-dont-let-them-steven-greenhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/592595\/","title":{"rendered":"Billionaires are trying to lull us into AI complacency. Don\u2019t let them | Steven Greenhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Americans grow increasingly worried that AI<\/a> will wipe out millions of jobs and create a permanent new underclass, tech billionaires are rushing to reassure us not to worry \u2013 the subtext being: please don\u2019t bring out the anti-AI pitchforks.<\/p>\n

Even Elon Musk<\/a>, who recently merged SpaceX with his AI company<\/a>, has joined the effort, essentially telling people \u201cdon\u2019t worry, be happy\u201d about AI. Musk wrote last month that \u201cUniversal HIGH INCOME via checks<\/a> issued by the Federal government\u201d would save everyone thrown out of work by AI.<\/p>\n

Musk says that AI will create such gigantic productivity gains and such vast economic abundance that there will be no inflation<\/a> and no need to \u201cworry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years\u201d. \u201cSaving for retirement will be irrelevant,\u201d<\/a> he added.<\/p>\n

As part of this reassurance chorus, Sam Altman\u2019s OpenAI issued a report<\/a> last month that said: \u201cThe promise of superintelligence is extraordinary \u2026 [AI] will speed up scientific and medical breakthroughs, significantly increase productivity, lower costs for families by making essential goods cheaper, and open the way for entirely new forms of work, creativity, and entrepreneurship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Thiel, the billionaire cofounder of Palantir, has also sought to minimize worries about AI, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s more than a nothing-burger<\/a>, and it\u2019s less than the total transformation of our society.\u201d Thiel added that if we don\u2019t develop AI, \u201cthe alternative is just total stagnation<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Americans battling to block new data centers across the US, Musk and other tech billionaires are seeking to lull the masses into believing that they shouldn\u2019t fear AI and certainly shouldn\u2019t fight against it. But as Musk and other billionaires maneuver to make tens of billions of dollars from AI, everyone should be doubly dubious about their assurances.<\/p>\n

People should be worried considering that Dario Amodei, Anthropic\u2019s CEO, said AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs<\/a> in one to five years and lift the unemployment rate to 20%. The CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, warned that most white-collar work \u201cwill be fully automated by an AI<\/a> within the next 12 to 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

As AI is rolled out across various industries, it is likely to have another important impact on workers, beyond any layoffs \u2013 AI will be used to control and surveil<\/a> workers and pressure them to increase their productivity.<\/p>\n

A Fox News poll found<\/a> that nearly one-third of Americans fear that AI will eliminate their job over the next five years. But the Trump administration seems singularly unconcerned. Donald Trump has enthusiastically embraced AI and sought to speed the way for AI companies to advance and build data centers. Kevin Hassett, a top Trump economic adviser, has downplayed job concerns<\/a>, saying AI isn\u2019t costing anyone their jobs<\/a> even as tech layoffs mount.<\/p>\n

Young people entering the job market should be especially worried. They shouldn\u2019t be comforted by Musk\u2019s claims that AI will bring some magical economic nirvana. Many economists<\/a> disagree strongly<\/a> with Musk\u2019s bullish prediction that AI will result in super gains in productivity and an overabundance of goods and services.<\/p>\n

It would be far wiser to heed Bernie Sanders\u2019 warnings than Musk\u2019s super-optimism. As the top Democrat on the Senate health, education and labor committee, Sanders issued a report saying that AI could replace tens of millions of jobs<\/a> and that we as a nation need to take major steps to protect against AI\u2019s harms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire<\/a> Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy and the future of humanity,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cThe time for action is now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In sharp contrast, Musk suggests that if we just wait a few years, AI will bring untold prosperity<\/a>. Sorry, Elon, but I side with Bernie on this. We need to take action now to protect against AI\u2019s potentially disastrous effects: millions of layoffs, a huge increase in economic inequality, and the creation of a large, new underclass. Even Amodei has cautioned that AI may create \u201can unemployed or very-low-wage \u2018underclass\u2019<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

With some experts saying that AI is the most far-reaching technological<\/a> development in history \u2013 Bill Gates said: \u201cOf all the things humans have ever created, AI will change society the most<\/a>\u201d \u2013 we need to be prepared. We need to have a stronger safety net in place asap because AI is advancing so rapidly. Mass layoffs may come far faster than expected. (Although they might come more slowly and be smaller than we fear, too.) We can hope for the best, but we should plan for the worst.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s talk of high-income checks for everyone sounds wonderful, but that would require having a big-hearted, compassionate president and Congress to enact legislation to create such generous checks. Let\u2019s not forget that Musk and other tech billionaires helped elect scores of rightwing politicians eager to shred or shrink the social safety net \u2013 last year those politicians passed legislation that makes it far harder to receive food stamps and Medicaid if you don\u2019t have a job. So we can\u2019t rely at all on Musk and other billionaires to win enactment of UHI, universal high-income checks. \u201cI am skeptical about [the billionaires\u2019 and big tech companies\u2019] willingness<\/a> to pay or incur the taxes necessary to sustain such proposals,\u201d said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a US representative who has teamed with Bernie Sanders to push for safeguards against AI.<\/p>\n

There are several important steps that we as a nation should take to protect against AI\u2019s harms.<\/p>\n

We should guarantee health insurance for everyone. The US overwhelmingly ties health insurance to one\u2019s job, and the fear that AI could displace millions of workers is a strong argument for the US to finally do what every other industrial nation has done: adopt a system of universal health insurance, perhaps through Medicare for All. That way, workers thrown to the curb by AI won\u2019t need to panic about losing health coverage.<\/p>\n

Wage insurance would be a smart, targeted program to help workers displaced by AI. Many of those workers will move to new jobs that pay significantly less than their old jobs, and wage insurance would be an important wage supplement, perhaps $10,000 a year. It would help offset workers\u2019 lower wages and encourage the unemployed to search for new jobs. Beyond that, the US should make its deeply flawed unemployment insurance system more generous. Mississippi\u2019s maximum jobless benefit<\/a> is just $235 a week; in Florida, it\u2019s just $275.<\/p>\n

In the event that AI does eliminate millions of jobs, the US should put in place a New Deal-like Works Progress Administration that would create millions of jobs for the unemployed. Perhaps they\u2019d repair the nation\u2019s infrastructure or work in childcare centers. Amid predictions that AI could incinerate millions of jobs, it would be unwise to rely on the market to create enough jobs for all the workers displaced by AI.<\/p>\n

Before AI wipes out a wide swath of jobs, we should vastly improve the nation\u2019s less-than-stellar job training programs to prepare workers for whatever the jobs of the future will be, whether in healthcare, construction, green energy or other fields.<\/p>\n

We should share the productivity gains from AI by legislating a 32-hour workweek at the old 40 hours\u2019 pay \u2013 a move that should help reduce layoffs. What\u2019s more, if AI means that our economy can thrive with the labor force working far fewer hours, then the US should finally enact a law mandating paid vacations for all workers: perhaps two weeks for new hires, three weeks after two years, and four weeks after four years. (Every worker in the 27 nations of the European Union is guaranteed four weeks\u2019 paid vacation<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Universal basic capital<\/a> would give Americans some funds that would enable them to share in the wealth created by AI. This grant of capital \u2013 perhaps in the form of shares in a universal investment fund \u2013 could be given to every American or to all workers or just to people at birth<\/a>. This, unlike universal basic income, would not only allow people to share in the profits and rising stock values, but would give people corporate voting rights. It would give the public a voice in running the nation\u2019s corporations, and hopefully in running AI companies, too.<\/p>\n

Seeing all the public anger at AI data centers, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have called for halting construction<\/a> of all new data centers nationwide until Congress enacts some basic protections against AI. Sanders and AOC hope that such a moratorium would be a lever to win, for instance, a ban on AI companies releasing products that can threaten our privacy and the future of humanity.<\/p>\n

To be sure, AI companies and many billionaires will vigorously oppose such a moratorium along with any meaningful limits on AI. That\u2019s why we need a powerful people\u2019s movement to fight for the strong safeguards that American workers, the American public and the world will need to protect against the vast potential dangers of AI.<\/p>\n

Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Americans grow increasingly worried that AI will wipe out millions of jobs and create a permanent new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-592595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}