Right, and the consequence is going to be, what?

Humans with zero economic value can still vote. They can still mass. They will still have needs. Really the script here writes itself. The historical precedents bound the problem rather well. As always, radical social change will not occur until a wide swath of the population is aligned. In this case, due to their broad economic devaluation.

It would be easier if today's knowledge workers stopped deluding themselves into thinking that their standards of living will maintain. Your acknowledgement of the necessary predicate to change is, in that respect, progress in itself. There is little reason why we cannot accelerate the timing of broad consensus if more people so readily came to that conclusion - and resisted the temptation to then find the answer instead in nostalgia about the past.

You assume there will still be free elections and democracy. There is also the possibility that the form of government will change into something else.

We are not deluding ourselves that we will maintain our standard of living. If the boss’ dream of replacing all workers by AI that does their job poorly but cheaply will be realized. We will go to the gutter with the rest of the economically worthless people.

There are many of them today, their needs are not met (but could be, the production output is largely there, but captured) and their political views don’t matter because the votes are captured by populists. I’m sure the powers that are will find a way to go around educated people voting.