A lot is hype

This was the whole point. A secure, politically active middle class will be too obstructive to the new aristocracy.

Many people think the social mobility came through intellectual feats, but when you look at it carefully, it came through agency and ownership.

Of those that use AI, most have finally cleared out their backlogs that were just never ending before AI. That took about 3 years to accomplish.

Now they have the time to do more ambitious projects. And many are doing just that.

I do not see AI taking jobs, I see it more as everyone got a great secretary/junior to offload 'busy' work onto.

Think of even the lower level employees now having access to some of the time saving labor that the old robber barons and fat cats had with legions of secretaries and go-get-em younguns.

Time will tell what becomes of all this, it still very early days, but I mostly see the effects of AI in my current life as like a tool. A great multi-tool, sure, but still just a tool.

I’m afraid that your perspective is flawed. There are many jobs whose output can’t be enhanced by offloading certain tasks to improve productivity - the output itself is replaced by AI.

For instance, a family member who is a successful freelance illustrator and whose field has dramatically shrank with the introduction of image generation. They don’t need a secretary, they need clients. The same clients that now are happy to replace 50%-80% of their demand with AI-generated imagery.