I used to be a libertarian-capitalist type. The big thing that disabused me of this idea is that I also love technology and progress, and I'm not a sociopath.

I increasingly believe that if we really do want to keep moving forward faster and faster, we will be forced to take one of two paths:

(1) Some kind of socialism with a much bigger social safety net, probably basic income, retraining, and universal health coverage.

(2) Absolute totalitarian surveillance state with drones and cameras everywhere and an iron-fist police force to suppress the constant threat of violent revolt as millions upon millions of people constantly lose their careers. This looks like dark cyberpunk, basically, and it's even kind of miserable for those at the very top. You can be rich and powerful, sure, but if you get on the wrong side of it you will be crushed. Look at what happens to oligarchs in Russia.

The path to (2) is unfortunately an idea that was just, even noble in the past: the puritan work ethic and its corollaries. It's a great idea when you have a society that doesn't change much where a person can pick a vocation and make a living. It doesn't work in a society that reinvents itself completely every 10-20 years, rendering entire employment verticals totally obsolete.

I think we've been able to ignore it until now. The change was still slow enough to tolerate.

AI is the end of that. It's going to be the end of stable careers.

Edit: I can think of a third option:

(3) Tax anything that is labor-replacing for a period of time equal to the time it usually takes people to retrain. e.g. AI would be taxed for the next 10-20 years in this scenario with the tax rate decreasing each year.

I greatly prefer (1) since the third option is likely to just freeze progress.