When we continue this line of thought far enough, we get to ask who's going to pay for the hardware and the electricity to run the AI that's taking all the jobs.

This is exactly the missing long-term perspective. All AI creators are focused either on the projected wins or the shiny technology, ignoring societal effects. Not that they should, they are engineers or MBAs after all, but somebody should. Somebody like us, or better somebody with better reach and better knowledge, should figure out a way to offer a future also to former clerks.