There's many things to be unpacked here, but one that feels particularly compelling is how the potential of AI is being leveraged to divide people further along class lines instead of being a tide that rises all boats. The narrative around AI adoption is largely a rehash of "think of how much more we could do with less", which is generally great for the ones who owns the means of production, not so much for the ones who are on the factory floor. It's quite visible when AI is being used as an excuse to lay people off and expand the expectation on whoever is left without necessarily increasing compensation to follow with the "added productivity". The worker/employee power dynamic is only made worse there since it seems to be a shared corporate wet dream to hire as little as possible and have "digital coworkers" fill the gaps. This isn't a new story: before, it was offshoring to cheaper markets (i.e. where the power dynamics are even more tipped toward the rich), now it's the dream of a digital worker that doesn't talk back and will work 24/7.

There doesn't seem to be much interest in using this to make people work less and engage in the rest of life more, hence the jokes about how somehow, the machines are generating art while folks are still toiling away to make ends meet.

The class division is even in the original message we're responding to: failing to get on the bandwagon or being pushed from it leads to lower income and status despite there being plenty to go around if we only stopped chasing infinite growth.