My main problem is this:

- If (big If) AI actually replaces workers, then we have a problem, because lots of folk lost their jobs

- If AI doesn't replace workers, then we have a recession, because a lot of the US economy now sits on top of corporations betting on it. And this will tank the economy and lots of folk will lose their jobs

It feels that the only path forward is a narrow one where AI removes some jobs, but not too many, but still enough so that the (immense, disproportionate) hype that was put on it does not come with a vengeance and the house of cards falls.

I don't think it an either / or. The current AI models, as they are, improve productivity quite a bit. They're just super expensive but the expense is being subsidized so it appears reasonable.

An alternative possibility is that the models become much cheaper and their use becomes more ubiquitous which would be helpful.

Basically the whole point of existence for St. Sam is make sure that his corpo is too big to fail. So either he strikes gold, or he is bailed out by the taxpayer money a-la "investments".

If your competitor is cutting jobs because of AI you can either race them to the bottom or you can use the humans you already have to leverage AI to expand your product offering, become more competitive, tackle more work, deliver better quality results etc. I don't see a world where AI does the work and humans sit around poor and idle.

Its probably a combination of both. Also, the "lots of folk" in the two scenarios are probably different orders of magnitude.

If one of both cases happens you can be sure the people most responsible will be the least affected. That is why this can get ugly. Honestly they deserve for it to get ugly. We can keep giving the Musks, Zuckerbergs, Altmans and co the benefit of the doubt

There is a third and, to me, so much more likely outcome that it's not even worth talking about the other two: AI makes workers more productive and unlocks more economic activity.

Fixed pie fallacy.