The new 'panem et circenses'

AI → UBI → MMT
Think about the implications of this.
AI replaces a meaningful share of human labor. Not just repetitive tasks. Productivity explodes. Labor demand doesn’t.
AI: capital captures most of the upside. Marginal cost of intelligence trends to zero. Owners of models and infrastructure compound.
UBI: political pressure builds. If labor income collapses, redistribution becomes stabilisation policy, not an ideology.
MMT: if the state can issue currency at will, funding UBI becomes a question of inflation management, not 'where the money comes from'.
This will result in a population partially detached from production, sustained by fiscal transfers, pacified by infinite digital entertainment.
Bread and circus, now streamed in 4k.
Ancient Rome had the Plebeians, a massive class of citizens with little power and even fewer prospects.
They were kept calm with free food and public spectacles. Enough to eat. Enough to watch. Enough to not rebel. Bread and circus.
Power concentrated at the top while the majority stayed distracted, dependent, and politically manageable.
This time the circus is algorithmic. Personalised, addictive and infinite.
The alternative is even scarier.
If AI alignment fails, or power centralises too aggressively, dependency stops being comfort and becomes risk.
A society that outsources cognition, production, even decision making to machines is efficient.
But it’s also exposed.
The system that feeds you can throttle you.
The system that entertains you can manipulate you.
And if AI drifts from tool to autonomous actor, not helpful, but adversarial, the problem isn’t unemployment. It’s existential.