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- Industrial-era workers have material leverage (e.g., strikes, sabotage) that limits elite power.
- AI-driven automation threatens to make humans materially powerless, removing their economic leverage.
- Even if jobs shift to a 'relational sector' (arts, care, hospitality), these roles lack material vitalness, leading to disempowerment.
- Empowerment requires material leverage (violence or work) and coordination; post-AI humans will lack both due to economic irrelevance and advanced surveillance.
- Potential counterarguments include institutional inertia, enduring human-AI complementarity, or classic AI doom scenarios.