Disclaimer: Most futurology turns out to be totally wrong and utterly without foundation. This goes double for unprecedented world-changing tech like AI. Still, it’s difficult for me to imagine that we won’t see some version of the following scenario.

Major Assumption: No Superintelligence Speedrun

We might quickly hit AGI and then use a million AGIs to invent superintelligence in a month. In that case, unless you work at the AI company concerned or are an important government regulator, you will have next to no impact on how things turn out.

For everyone else, it's more important to concentrate on medium/slow takeoff scenarios in which AI is integrated into and disrupts industries and everyday life. This will give the general public, politicians, and activists time to incorporate AI into their agendas.

Polarization: AI as a New Political Battlefield

The economic winners (capitalists and blue collar workers) and losers (educated knowledge workers) during medium/slow AI takeoff already form the opposing sides in the current political war. AI will slot seamlessly into the existing left-right divide, massively exacerbating the culture war by threatening the left's economic livelihood. Chaos, mass protest, and even potential civil war will result.

The Left: Resistance and Radicalization

The liberal side of the spectrum includes knowledge workers, professionals, and students—the people whose jobs will be automated by AI.

The threat of automation will deepen liberals' existing antipathy towards Silicon Valley and big tech. Professionals will form unions and strike to protect their jobs and wages. Meanwhile, college students, facing massive debt for degrees AI will render obsolete by the time they graduate, will join protests. Historically, students have been leaders in protest movements, and now—with AI taking care of homework—they’ll have even more time to mobilize politically.

While personal economic insecurity may be the catalyst, protesters will integrate anti-AI activism into the broader liberal agenda, highlighting AI’s potential for discrimination, the exploitation of internet commons by corporations, environmental impacts, and troubling applications of algorithmic judgment in human lives.

Their demands will likely include a universal basic income, extensive regulatory oversight of AI, mandatory human supervision, and protection of certain jobs as strictly human doma...

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