AI-driven automation deepens existing labor stratification, echoing historic tech shifts and global inequality patterns
Original framing: “Could AI create a ‘permanent underclass’?” — Financial Times
The pattern of technology amplifying existing labour hierarchies recurs from the steam engine to the computer age, where each wave intensified skill‑biased displacement while creating new elite occupations. Historical case studies show that proactive labour legislation and social safety nets mitigated the worst outcomes, suggesting that similar interventions are possible today.
The prospect of a permanent AI‑driven underclass is less a novel technological destiny than the continuation of historic labour stratification amplified by contemporary policy gaps and corporate incentives.
Indigenous relational ethics, historical lessons from past industrial revolutions, and cross‑cultural governance models demonstrate that alternative, more equitable pathways are possible when power is redistributed through transparent regulation, collective ownership of data, and robust public investment in lifelong learning. By foregrounding marginalised voices and embedding trickster insights that destabilise complacent narratives, societies can co‑design AI systems that reinforce social cohesion rather than deepen division, guided by evidence‑based future modelling and supported by global solidarity mechanisms.