AI job losses will cost workers more than a paycheck
If AI displaces human workers, they will lose more than just pay
Anthropic plans to put 5% of its shares into a public-benefit fund that could pay cash to people hurt by economic upheaval, and Elon Musk has promised a share of SpaceX to every American child. The Economist's Bartleby column argues that such gestures miss the deeper loss: work gives people identity, structure and belonging, not just income.
Sometimes you embark on a project and realise that you have misjudged things. To your horror you realise it's too late to turn back. So you plough on and hope to avoid catastrophe.