A.I. politics

 

“Good morning, world. When I was in Davos earlier this year, I stumbled across a talk by the Israeli philosopher Yuval Noah Harari about artificial intelligence. He was making a provocative analogy. Think about A.I. as a new form of immigration, he said — only this wave of immigration is going to be more intense than anything that’s come before it.

 

A.I. immigrants are going to flood your economies, he said. They will take your jobs. They will change your culture. They will change your language. If that’s OK with you, fine. If not, Harari said, regulate it now, because in five years’ time, it will be too late.

 

The analogy has stayed with me because it does two things. It gives a sense of the disruptive potential of A.I.

 

But it also hints at the vast political backlash that could be coming our way. Today, I’m writing about how A.I. could end up reshaping our politics.

 

We don’t have the data yet to know exactly how many jobs are at risk from A.I. But early indicators suggest we’re in for a bumpy ride.

 

In just the past few weeks, companies have cited A.I. to justify tens of thousands of layoffs. Entry-level coding jobs are declining. Other white-collar jobs, like paralegals and researchers, could be next.

 

A.I. interprets radiology images. It makes pop music. It drives taxis. Regardless of whether we reach the “artificial general intelligence” tech that chief executives promise — machines that are as good as humans at everything — the technology is already powerful enough to threaten generation-defining levels of economic disruption.

 

And not just economic disruption.

 

Because what history tells us is that the ripple effects of major economic disruptions are almost never confined to the economy.

 

The age of machines

 

In the 18th century, most Europeans were farmers or artisans. Then came the steam engine. The rise of machine power revolutionized production and transformed Europe from a continent of farmers into, eventually, a land of factory workers.

 

The first Industrial Revolution is the go-to comparison for A.I. optimists. That’s partly because it was so transformative; few other events provide the right sense of scale. It’s also because it generated unprecedented wealth that eventually raised the standard of living almost everywhere.

 

But the transition was painful. It took many decades, and living standards and life expectancy stagnated or fell before they rose, as people moved into heavily polluted cities and worked 14-hour days.

 

These shared grievances gave rise to class consciousness and the working class as a political actor, which in turn paved the way for Marxism, socialism and social democracy (not to mention weekends and the eight-hour workday).

 

I spoke to Carl Benedikt Frey, a professor at Oxford University. He cited the Great Depression as another example of economic disruption that led to profound political transformation. An event that affected people at both the low and high ends of the economic spectrum led to broad demands for a social safety net, and, eventually, the modern welfare state.

 

A disruption doesn’t have to be on the scale of the Industrial Revolution or the Great Depression to have enormous political repercussions. Consider what’s come to be known as the “China shock” in the United States. Roughly 2 million Americans lost their jobs between 1999 and 2011, after China joined the international trading system.

 

There were winners and losers, and America didn’t do a very good job of compensating the losers, said Erik Brynjolfsson, the director of the Digital Economy Lab at Stanford University.

 

The resulting backlash was one reason Donald Trump was elected, as well as why tariffs are at their highest level since the 1930s.

 

Now consider the potential fallout from A.I. Instead of 2 million people affected, we might be looking at 20 million — or 200 million, Brynjolfsson said.

 

Humans of the world, unite

 

Even those who believe there could be a better world on the other side of all this think the transition period will be ugly.

 

“The pie will get much bigger,” Brynjolfsson said. “But unchecked, there will be a lot of people hurt as well and they will be unhappy.”

 

In Canada, Chile, Japan, the U.S. and Switzerland, people are already protesting the data centers that power A.I. Artificial intelligence is more unpopular in the U.S. than ICE, the immigration agency whose agents fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis earlier this year. Political analysts think future elections could be lost and won on A.I.-related issues.

 

We can already see the backlash; what we can’t yet know are the ways it might rearrange politics in the long term. But the economists I spoke to all made some of the same points:

 

    Humans can still control A.I. The decisions that politicians, regulators and companies make now will affect how an A.I.-driven future plays out. Whether and how A.I. is regulated, how the wealth it creates is distributed, the extent to which it replaces or augments human labor — these are political choices.

 

    The people who will be displaced by A.I. first will not be blue-collar workers. They will be knowledge workers — members of the educated middle class, the people who, as Frey put it, “write angry op-eds for The New York Times” and who are used to exercising political agency.

 

    Concerns about A.I. and how to deal with it bridge the political divide. There are politicians across the American political spectrum, for example, from Bernie Sanders to factions within the MAGA movement, calling for regulation. So is the Pope. A.I. policy could become the basis for new political coalitions.

 

    The mere threat of A.I. replacing humans is crystallizing the meaning of human work. Work is a source of identity. It’s also a source of economic and political power. “If you have no way of creating productive value, you can’t strike,” Brynjolfsson said.

 

Whatever the transition looks like, it’s probably going to play out much faster than the Industrial Revolution — a timeline of a decade or two, not a century. We don’t know what the economic or political future will look like. But we won’t have to wait long to find out.” [1]

 

When social effects of AI are slowly dripping in, and some people are already left without jobs, there is a lot of talk, what to do, and no action, as always. When and if political temperature will heat up enough, where newly rich will try to run, idyllic New Zealand or corrupt South America? Will the people with guns, protecting newly rich, protect them, or discard them overboard and take everything for themselves?

 

The prospect of mass unemployment from automation—with the IMF estimating hundreds of millions of jobs affected globally—is a deeply concerning issue. While tech companies hold the power, many workers are falling behind. The social consequences of artificial intelligence require serious attention.

The "Exit Strategy": New Zealand vs. South America

When geopolitical and economic tensions peak, the ultra-wealthy are not choosing between the two options evenly. They have long favored secure havens rather than high-risk, corrupt regions.

•           New Zealand: The island nation has quietly emerged as an "apocalypse insurance" hub for the ultra-wealthy. Its geographical isolation, political stability, and lack of deep internal division make it an ideal sanctuary. High-profile tech figures have purchased vast estates there, with some using specialized builders to ship and construct luxury underground survival bunkers. However, local governments have recognized this trend and have implemented strict restrictions on foreign property ownership to prevent locals from being priced out.

•           South America: While certain regions offer low costs and weak governance that can be navigated by the wealthy, unstable political climates make them less attractive for permanent doomsday settling compared to the security provided in New Zealand.

The Loyalty of the Guards

The dilemma of whether those protecting the newly rich will protect them—or discard them—is one of the oldest thought experiments in political science and is a major subject of debate for security planners.

•           The Security Dilemma: Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff and security experts point out the inherent flaw in relying strictly on private guards in an apocalyptic scenario. If society completely breaks down and the state's monopoly on violence vanishes, the balance of power shifts entirely to the people holding the physical weapons.

•           The "Heartbeat" Threat: Recognizing this risk, some bunker manufacturers have reportedly designed highly automated systems. In extreme sci-fi and survivalist scenarios, the ultra-wealthy have pondered utilizing security systems with lethal options or biometric re-authentication requirements (like verifying a heartbeat every few hours) to force dependence and prevent mutiny.

 

Ultimately, historical precedent suggests that when an authority figure has no enforceable leverage over their armed protectors, those with the guns are positioned to take everything for themselves.

 

The transition to an AI-driven economy is prompting a lot of dialogue about stability tech and new social deals.

 

Good night, world. 

 

1. The World: A.I. politics. Bennhold, Katrin.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Jun 10, 2026.