It’s a thought that feels like it’s pulled from a science fiction movie, yet it’s being discussed at the highest levels of finance and technology. The Chief Information Officer of Goldman Sachs recently predicted that within a year, companies will start using AI agents as actual employees. These are not just tools but team members. He went further, suggesting that as AI gets a physical body through robotics, it will start to “live in our world,” developing its own experiences and a form of judgment we once thought was uniquely human. This isn’t a distant future fantasy. Figures like Elon Musk and political leaders are making decisions that seem to align with a world on the brink of a massive change. It begs the question: are they simply innovating, or are they preparing for a storm that the rest of us don’t see coming?
The Case for a Coming Collapse
The argument that a major disruption is on the horizon is built on a few powerful ideas. The first is the sheer speed of AI development. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has stated that his organization knows how to create Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, which is AI with human level cognitive abilities. This milestone, once considered decades away, now seems to be just around the corner. Ray Kurzweil, a well known inventor and futurist, predicted this would all happen by 2040, but the massive flood of investment into AI may have put us ahead of schedule.
If companies can use AI to perform 90 percent of the tasks humans currently do, the economic equation changes completely. Why hire a person when an AI can do the job faster, cheaper, and without needing a break? The logical outcome is mass unemployment on a scale never seen before. This leads to the core of the collapse theory: if millions of people lose their jobs, they lose their income. Without income, they cannot buy goods and services. Without customers, the very companies that replaced workers with AI will see their markets evaporate, leading to a catastrophic economic spiral. It is a domino effect where everyone loses.
This theory gains traction when you look at the actions of some of the world’s most influential people. They seem to be hedging their bets. We hear about projects that sound like modern day fortresses or self sufficient communities, sometimes called enclaves. These are places designed to be independent and resilient. It leads observers to wonder if these are just ambitious real estate projects or something more, a kind of life raft for a world they expect to be radically different. When people who have a track record of predicting the future start building bunkers, it makes you pay attention.
Is It Really That Simple?
However, the story is not so straightforward. History has shown that technology is a powerful force for creation as well as destruction. The industrial revolution displaced millions of farm workers, but it also created brand new industries and jobs in factories, cities, and offices. The computer revolution made many clerical jobs obsolete, but it gave rise to the entire digital economy, creating roles like software developer, data analyst, and social media manager, jobs our grandparents could not have imagined.
Optimists, including some AI pioneers like Yann Le Cun, argue that the same will happen again. They believe AI will not just destroy jobs but will act as a powerful tool to augment human capabilities, creating new industries and new roles we can’t yet foresee. It could free humanity from mundane labor to focus on creativity, strategy, and interpersonal connection. Furthermore, the idea of an overnight collapse ignores the power of society to adapt. Governments can and do intervene in economies. Concepts like Universal Basic Income (UBI), where every citizen receives a regular, unconditional sum of money, are being seriously discussed as a way to provide a safety net and ensure everyone has purchasing power, even if traditional jobs become scarce.
Not Software, But Something New
It is also important to understand what AI truly is. We often think of it as just very advanced software. But modern AI, built on neural networks, is fundamentally different. It is a complex system of interconnected virtual neurons that learn, not just execute commands. The next wave of technology involves neuromorphic chips, which are designed to mimic the human brain’s structure. These chips are incredibly efficient and could allow powerful AI to operate on mobile devices, untethered from the massive data centers they rely on today. This isn’t just the next version of your smartphone; it represents a move away from traditional computers toward something that thinks in a more biological, brain like way. This reality means AI’s integration into our world will be profound and will likely be in ways we cannot yet fully predict, both for good and for ill.
The Unwritten Future
So, are the elite secretly preparing for doomsday? Or are they simply the ones with the vision and capital to build the next phase of human civilization, a future that will inevitably look very different from our present? The evidence can be read both ways. On one hand, the pace of AI advancement and its potential to upend the job market are real and warrant serious concern. The actions of some influential figures could be interpreted as preparation for a great unraveling.
On the other hand, predictions of technological doom have been wrong before. Human ingenuity and our ability to adapt socially and politically are powerful forces. The future is not a movie script that has already been written. It is a dynamic process that we are all participating in. The warnings from insiders might not be a sign that they know a collapse is coming, but rather a call to action for all of us to start a serious conversation about what kind of future we want to build in the age of artificial intelligence. The decisions we make today about governing this technology, educating our populations, and structuring our economy will determine whether it leads to a collapse or a renaissance.
