With all that is going on in the world — real problems, real wars, real issues that are happening in real time — it’s easy to understand why we don’t hear much about the potential socioeconomic impact of AI. There’s lots of talk about regulations, privacy, safety, ethics, and intellectual property rights, but not much talk about how AI is going to truly impact how we spend our day. Let’s explore.
We are very close to a time when we are going to notice that AI is doing almost everything for us. Our smartphones will evolve into cognitive prosthetics anticipating our needs, scheduling appointments, and making decisions on our behalf. Our AI-powered shoppers will navigate the vast expanse of e-commerce, selecting products tailored to our preferences. Our AI-powered health coaches will monitor our vital signs, providing personalized wellness advice and interventions. We will live in a world where anything that can be automated will be automated.
Let your mind wander… What if smart homes were truly smart, cars genuinely drove themselves, and every doctor, lawyer, accountant—every knowledge worker—were AI-amplified, substantially reducing the number of people needed for these tasks? Research would be amplified by AI to the extent that new discoveries would happen moment by moment. Ultimately, such a world would be co-populated with agentic systems capable of autonomous decision-making that would manage supply chains, optimize logistics, and predict market trends. This would be a world where AI-based businesses sell to AI-based customers. Humans need not interfere.
Is this science fiction? I don’t think so. It won’t all happen at once, and it probably won’t happen as you or I imagine it, but all of this will eventually happen. Then what? What are the socioeconomics of such a world?
Human Economic Productivity in the Age of AI
We can think of this world as a world where intelligence is decoupled from humanity. In this world intelligent systems function autonomously doing everything they are allowed to do (and many things they aren’t). A world where human/AI co-worker teams outperform all purely human teams. A world where unassisted humans are severely limited in their economic productivity (the technical term for the efficiency with which goods and services are produced, often measured in terms of output per unit of input, such as labor or capital).
The cliché answers for this hypothetical include utopian fantasies such as, “People will have time to rediscover the joys of artistic expression.” Or, “We’ll have time to develop our emotional intelligence, engage in philosophical inquiry, and personal growth.” In the context of economic productivity, this is all nonsense.
The Economic Argument
Let’s transform this thought experiment into an economic argument drawing from known economic theses.
Universal Basic Income (UBI)
One widely discussed solution is the implementation of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). As AI systems take over more jobs, providing a guaranteed income to all citizens could ensure financial stability and enable people to pursue activities beyond traditional employment. Several experiments have been created to test this idea: Finland (2017-2018), Stockton, California (2019-2021), Kenya (Ongoing). These experiments illustrate that while UBI might not dramatically change employment patterns, it can have a positive impact on well-being, financial stability, and local economies, but the jury is still out.
The Role of Human Creativity and Innovation
Human creativity is magic and it will remain irreplaceable. It is more than likely that AI will create new jobs and new opportunities that we cannot yet foresee. Three years ago, there were no job descriptions that included “prompt engineering” as a requirement. The problem with this argument is that most jobs do not require magical human creativity.
Tradespeople
There are a fair number of jobs that are going to thrive until humanoid robots become extraordinarily capable. Plumbers, HVAC, Carpenters, Electricians, Smart Home integrators, landscaping, food service, nursing, pre-school, early childhood development, and K-6 teachers, music teachers, physical education teachers, coaches, etc. There are literally thousands of jobs that cannot practically be accomplished by automation alone.
The Dark Side of Super-Automation
There is a dark side to all of this. For every job AI creates, it will likely eliminate many more, fundamentally altering the fabric of our economy. The untrained and untrainable—those who lack the skills or cognitive ability to transition into new, AI-compatible roles—will be left behind, facing a future of economic obsolescence.
In this future, millions will be rendered economically useless, not just because they lack jobs, but because the very nature of work as we know it will have changed. Cognitive, non-repetitive work, the backbone of many economies, will be done by AI. Jobs that require human intuition, empathy, or dexterity—such as caregiving, teaching young children, and certain trades—may survive longer, but even these will eventually succumb to the relentless march of automation and AI. Those who cannot adapt will find themselves in a dystopian reality where their only hope is to rely on a UBI, if it exists, merely to survive.
But UBI is no panacea. While it may provide a temporary safety net, it cannot replace the sense of purpose and fulfillment derived from meaningful work. Moreover, as more people become dependent on such a system, the societal divide will deepen. Those with the means to harness AI will continue to accumulate wealth and power, while the rest will be relegated to the margins of society, dependent on state handouts with no opportunity for upward mobility.
In this world, the untrained and untrainable will not just be unemployed—they will be unemployable. I don’t know how to calculate the socioeconomic impact of this shift but it would clearly lead to increased inequality, social unrest, and a potential breakdown of the social contract. As intelligence becomes decoupled from humanity, the very essence of what it means to be human will be threatened. The economic argument is clear: without careful management and forward-thinking policies, the age of super automation could lead to a world where a large segment of the population is economically and socially excluded, with devastating consequences for us all.
It doesn’t need to be this way. We can be the architects of the world we want to live in – but only if we all agree it’s a problem worth discussing and act decisively.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it. This work was created with the assistance of various generative AI models.