Joe: In 1900, 41% of all American jobs were in agriculture. Today, it’s less than 4%. A similar number of horses worked on those farms. Today, they’re mostly a hobby. What if our jobs are next on the chopping block, and we’re the new horses? Lewis: Whoa. That's a stark comparison. But we've heard this story before, right? The Luddites, the fear of machines... it never actually leads to mass, permanent unemployment. We always adapt. Joe: Exactly. And that's the first big myth this book tackles. We're talking about The Economic Singularity: Artificial intelligence and the death of capitalism by Calum Chace. And Chace isn't just some sci-fi writer; he's an AI consultant with a background in philosophy and economics from Oxford, which gives his predictions a chillingly pragmatic edge. He argues that this time, the old rules don't apply. Lewis: Okay, I'm intrigued and a little nervous. An Oxford-trained AI guy telling me I might be a horse. Let's get into it. Why is this time supposedly so different?

Joe: Well, to understand Chace's point, we have to start with that very idea you mentioned—the Luddite Fallacy. It’s the name economists give to the mistaken belief that new technology inevitably causes permanent, widespread unemployment. Lewis: And it’s a fallacy because, historically, it’s been wrong. The Industrial Revolution got rid of weavers, but it created factory managers, mechanics, and a million other jobs. The Information Revolution got rid of telephone operators and secretaries, but it created software engineers and digital marketers. Joe: Precisely. The argument has always been that technology destroys specific tasks, but it doesn't destroy work. It just changes the kind of work we do. Chace walks us through this history, from Queen Elizabeth I refusing a patent for a mechanical knitting machine in the 1590s because she feared it would put her subjects out of work, to the rise of the ATM, which people initially hated. Lewis: Hold on, people hated ATMs? I can't imagine my life without them. I'd rather talk to a machine than a person for a simple withdrawal any day. Joe: That's his point! The book mentions the first cash machine was only used by gamblers and prostitutes who didn't want to face a human teller. But soon, everyone realized the convenience. We adapted. The Luddite Fallacy held true. But Chace’s entire argument hinges on one monumental difference in this new revolution. Lewis: And that is? Joe: All previous revolutions automated muscle power. We, as humans, simply retrained our minds to do more cognitive work. We went from the fields to the factories, and from the factories to the offices. The problem is, this new revolution, the AI revolution, isn't coming for our muscles. It's coming for our minds. Lewis: Okay, that’s a big claim. You’re saying it’s automating the very thing we used to escape the last wave of automation. Joe: Exactly. And to make this real, Chace uses the most powerful and haunting analogy in the book: the story of the American horse. In 1900, the US reached 'peak horse' with about 21 million of them working on farms and in cities. They were the engine of the economy. Lewis: Right, they were the living tractors and trucks of their day. Joe: And then the internal combustion engine arrived. Tractors, cars, and trucks started doing the work of the horse, but cheaper, faster, and better. By 1960, the horse population had collapsed from 21 million to just 3 million. They became, for the most part, economically useless. Lewis: That’s a brutal way to put it. Joe: It is, but it’s crucial. The problem for the horses wasn't that they were lazy. The problem was that the one thing they could sell—their physical power—was no longer valuable. And you couldn't retrain a horse to design a better tractor or to manage a logistics company. They had no other skills to offer the new economy. Lewis: And Chace is saying… we are the horses. Joe: He’s asking the question. If AI can perform cognitive tasks better than us, what skills do we have left to sell? It's a terrifying thought. And it's not some distant sci-fi future. A famous study out of Oxford by Frey and Osborne, which Chace discusses, analyzed over 700 jobs and concluded that a staggering 47% of total US employment is in the high-risk category for automation in the coming decade or two. Lewis: Forty-seven percent! That’s not a fringe group; that’s nearly half the workforce. And we're not just talking about factory workers, are we? Joe: Not at all. The book is filled with examples of AI encroaching on high-skill professions. There are AI systems like RAVN Ace that can do legal discovery work, sifting through millions of documents in a fraction of the time it would take a team of lawyers, and with higher accuracy. There's Narrative Science's Quill, an AI that writes financial reports and sports articles for major outlets like Forbes and Associated Press. Lewis: So it's coming for lawyers and journalists, too. The very people who write and think for a living. Joe: Even doctors. IBM's Watson has shown a 90% accuracy rate in diagnosing certain lung cancers, compared to 50% for human physicians. The point is, if the one thing we have to offer is our intelligence, and we build machines that are more intelligent than us, we risk becoming the new horses. Unable to retrain for a world that no longer needs our core abilities. Lewis: Okay, that is genuinely unsettling. It reframes the entire debate. It’s not about whether we can adapt; it’s about whether there’s anything left to adapt to. So if Chace is right, and we're heading for this… this 'Economic Singularity'… what happens to society? It can't just be about unemployment checks, can it? Joe: No. That’s where it gets even more complicated. He argues that if we hit that point, it triggers a cascade of five systemic crises that could unravel society as we know it.

Lewis: The Five Horsemen of the AI Apocalypse. That sounds… dramatic. Joe: It is, but the logic is sound. Chace lays out five core challenges: Economic Contraction, Distribution, Meaning, Allocation, and Cohesion. Lewis: Okay, let's start with the first one. Economic Contraction. That sounds like a recession, but I'm guessing it's worse. Joe: Much worse. Chace tells this great, almost legendary story about the union boss Walter Reuther visiting a Ford factory in the 1950s. A Ford executive proudly shows off a new line of automated robots and asks Reuther, "How are you going to get these robots to pay union dues?" Lewis: A classic corporate jab. What did Reuther say? Joe: He fired back instantly: "How are you going to get them to buy your cars?" And that is the entire problem of economic contraction in a nutshell. If machines do all the work, and most people don't have jobs, then most people don't have an income. If they don't have an income, they can't buy things. Lewis: And if no one is buying things, it doesn't matter how efficiently your robot-run factories are producing them. The entire system grinds to a halt. Demand collapses. Joe: Exactly. It's a deflationary death spiral. So that leads directly to the second horseman: Distribution. If the old way of distributing wealth—a wage for a job—is gone, you need a new system. Lewis: This is where Universal Basic Income, or UBI, comes into the picture, right? The government just gives everyone a basic income to live on. Joe: Yes, and Chace spends a lot of time on UBI. He sees it as a necessary first step to prevent total societal collapse. He points to experiments like the one in Dauphin, Manitoba, where a whole town was given a basic income, and the results were largely positive—hospital visits went down, and the only people who really stopped working were new mothers and teenagers, who focused on family and education. Lewis: That sounds promising. So, problem solved? Joe: Not even close. UBI might solve the immediate distribution problem, but it opens up a Pandora's box of other issues. Which brings us to the third horseman: Meaning. For many people, their job is a huge part of their identity. It gives them purpose, structure, a social circle. What happens when that's gone? Lewis: The book has an answer for that, doesn't it? It points to the European aristocrats of the 18th and 19th centuries. They didn't work, but they seemed to fill their lives just fine with politics, science, art, and socializing. Joe: It does. It suggests we can find meaning outside of paid labor. But it also acknowledges this is a massive psychological and cultural shift. And it connects to the fourth, and very tricky, horseman: Allocation. Lewis: Allocation? What does that mean? Joe: Okay, so in a world with UBI, everyone has enough money for the basics. But some things are inherently scarce. There's only one penthouse apartment with a perfect view of Central Park. There's only one front-row seat at the concert. How do we decide who gets those things when everyone has a basic income but massive wealth inequality might still exist from the pre-UBI world? Lewis: Ah, so the market still exists, but it could become even more stratified. The super-rich can still buy anything, and everyone else is on a basic living standard. That sounds like a recipe for resentment. Joe: It is. And that leads to the fifth and most dangerous horseman: Cohesion. This is the scenario that the historian Yuval Harari, who Chace quotes, brutally calls the division of humanity into "the gods and the useless." Lewis: I remember that. The 'gods' are the tiny elite who own the AI and the robots, and maybe even use technology to enhance their own bodies and minds. And the 'useless' are the rest of us, living on UBI, maybe plugged into virtual reality to keep us entertained. Joe: It's a terrifying vision of social fracture. A world where two classes of humans exist that are so different they might as well be different species. And Chace argues that preventing this fracture, maintaining social cohesion, is the single greatest challenge we face. Lewis: Wow. So it's a domino effect. Job loss leads to economic collapse, which forces us into a new distribution model like UBI, which then creates crises of meaning, allocation, and potentially, the very fabric of society. That's a bleak picture. Is there any way out? Does Chace offer any hope? Joe: He does. After laying out all these challenges, he explores a range of possible futures. And while some are grim, one of them offers a surprisingly pragmatic and hopeful path forward.

Lewis: Okay, I need some hope right now. After the five horsemen, I'm ready for a hero. What are the options? Joe: Chace lays out a few scenarios. There's the 'No Change' scenario, which he dismisses as unlikely. There's the 'Fracture' and 'Collapse' scenarios we just touched on. But the most interesting one he presents is called 'Protopia'. Lewis: Protopia? That sounds like a typo for Utopia. Joe: It's a deliberate choice. The concept comes from Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired magazine. Kelly argues that Utopian thinking is dangerous because it imagines a perfect, static endpoint. Protopia, on the other hand, is about incremental, dynamic progress. It's a state where each year is slightly better than the last. New technologies create new problems, but we also get better at solving them. It's not a perfect world, but it's a world that's always improving. Lewis: I like that. It feels more realistic. It’s not about finding a magic solution, but about getting better at the process of solving problems. So how do we build a Protopian future in the face of the Economic Singularity? Joe: This is where Chace gets really forward-thinking. He suggests that UBI, funded by taxing the ultra-wealthy owners of the AI, is a temporary patch, not a permanent solution. It doesn't solve the underlying problems of allocation and cohesion. Lewis: Right, it keeps people fed but doesn't address the massive power imbalance. Joe: Exactly. So, for a true Protopian society to emerge, Chace floats a more radical idea: we need to change who owns the machines. If the robots and AI are creating all the wealth, then perhaps everyone needs to own a piece of the robots and AI. Lewis: That sounds like… communism. Collective ownership of the means of production. Joe: He acknowledges it sounds like that, but he proposes a 21st-century version. He points to a fascinating technological solution that could make it possible without a centralized, authoritarian state: the blockchain. Lewis: The technology behind Bitcoin? How does that help? Joe: The core innovation of the blockchain, as Chace explains it, was solving something called the 'Byzantine General's Problem.' It's a way for a decentralized network to agree on something being true without a central authority. It allows for trust and validation in a distributed system. Lewis: Okay, so you could, in theory, have assets—like shares in the AI companies—that are collectively owned by everyone, with the ownership and transactions managed transparently on a blockchain. No central government controlling it all. Joe: That's the idea. It's a way to achieve the goals of collective ownership—a fair distribution of the immense wealth generated by AI—without the historical baggage and failures of centralized state control. It’s a vision where the abundance created by machines flows to everyone, not just a tiny elite. It’s a potential path to solving the challenges of distribution and cohesion at their very root. Lewis: That's a mind-bending concept. It's taking this incredibly disruptive technology, AI, and pairing it with another, blockchain, to try and build a more equitable society. It's ambitious, and it feels like we're a long way from that. Joe: We are. And Chace is clear that these are not predictions, but scenarios to help us plan. But it shows that there are paths forward that aren't just about collapse or dystopia.

Joe: So, we've journeyed from this chilling realization that 'this time is different' for automation, to the five massive societal crises that could follow, and finally, to a glimpse of a difficult but potentially hopeful path forward in the idea of Protopia. Lewis: It feels like the core message of the book is that technology isn't destiny. The future Chace describes isn't a fixed point we're hurtling towards. It's a set of possibilities, and the outcome depends entirely on the choices we make today. We can either drift into a world of mass unemployment and inequality, or we can start having the hard conversations and planning for a radically different economic system right now. Joe: Exactly. Chace's ultimate point, I think, is that the Economic Singularity forces us to ask a fundamental question we've been avoiding for centuries: What is an economy for? If its primary purpose is no longer to provide jobs, then maybe, just maybe, its purpose is to provide a good life for everyone. It's a monumental shift in thinking. Lewis: It really is. It moves the goalposts from productivity and employment to well-being and human flourishing. It's both terrifying and incredibly exciting. Joe: It is. And it puts a huge weight on our shoulders. Chace ends the book by quoting John F. Kennedy, who said, "We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world – or make it the last." That feels more true now than ever. Lewis: A powerful thought to end on. We'd love to hear what you all think. Are we the new horses? Is Protopia a real possibility? Find us on our socials and let's discuss. Joe: This is Aibrary, signing off.