Cross-posted from Substack.
EDIT 12/04/2025: The last two paragraphs were logically inconsistent and overly strong. I’ve updated the final paragraph to fix the issue and better reflect my position after more thought. Thank you to Julian for pointing this out.
AI job displacement will affect young people first, disrupting the usual succession of power and locking the next generation out of our institutions. I’m coining the term youth lockout to describe this phenomenon.
We are on track to build AI agents that can independently perform valuable intellectual labour. These agents will directly compete with human workers for roles in the labour market, often offering services at lower cost and greater speeds.
In historical cases of automation,... (read 1229 more words →)
Situational Awareness probably caused Project Stargate to some extent. Getting the Republican party to take AI seriously enough to let them launch in the White House is no joke and less likely without the essay.
It also started the website-essay meta which is part of why AI 2027, The Compendium, and Gradual Disempowerment all launched the way they did, so there are knock-on effects too.
Thanks, fixed.