Comment by lanfeust6

No, anti-vax is comparatively much older with a spike during the pandemic, but even the more recent global populist phenomenon preceded the salience of AI.

Software hiring rate has rebounded this year. Even those most impacted aren't looking very "obsolete" yet. But leaving the uncertain future aside, this idea that being economically unproductive means the wealthy would want to "purge" you is for the birds, it doesn't make sense. Especially in a post-scarcity situation, keeping people alive is cheap.

Consumers is how rich people get rich in the first place, if no one's buying then they're in stasis as though everything is zero-sum (incidentally, how populists think) and innovation no longer matters. They already don't have to work, they already could just idly sit on a pile of cash, but human nature is such that we still care about status signalling and making impacts, which depends on other people being around.