But the claim is not "it's going to happen", the claim is "it is inevitable that it will happen", which is a much more stronger claim.

Things “happen” in human history only because humans make them happen. If enough humans do or don’t want something to happen, then they can muster the collective power to achieve it.

The unstated corollary in this essay is that venture capital and oligarchs do not get to define our future simply because they have more money.

> do not get to define our future simply because they have more money

I don't like it, but it seems that more money is exactly why they get to define our future.

I refer you again to the essay; it's not inevitable that those with substantially more money than us should get to dominate us and define our future. They are but a tiny minority, and if/when enough of us see that future as not going our way, we can and will collectively withdraw our consent for the social and economic rules and structures which enable those oligarchs.

It is possible to have a society wide revolution.

French revolution, Iranian revolution and I'm sure a bunch of others throughout history.

Even the good revolutions are NOT NICE and the outcomes are not guaranteed.

Would you say the industrial revolution would have been able to be stopped by enough humans not wanting to achieve it?

>The unstated premise of this essay is that venture capital and oligarchs do not get to define our future simply because they have more money.

AI would progress without them. Not as fast, but it would.

In my mind the inevitability of technological progress comes from our competition with each other and general desire do work more easily and effectively. The rate of change will increase with more resources dedicated to innovation, but people will always innovate.

Currently, AI is improved through concerted human effort and energy-intensive investments. Without that human interest and effort, progress in the field would slow.

But even if AI development continues unabated, nothing is forcing us to deploy AI in ways that reduce our quality of life. We have a choice over how it's used in our society because we are the ones who are building that society.

>Would you say the industrial revolution would have been able to be stopped by enough humans not wanting to achieve it?

Yes, let's start in early 1800s England: subsistence farmers were pushed off the land by the enclosure acts and, upon becoming landless, flocked to urban areas to work in factories. The resulting commodified market of mobile laborers enabled the rise of capitalism.

So let's say these pre-industrial subsistence farmers had instead chosen to identify with the working class Chartism movement of the mid-1800s and joined in a general strike against the landed classes who controlled parliament. In that case, the industrial revolution, lacking a sufficiently pliable workforce, might have been halted, or at least occurred in a more controlled way that minimized human suffering.