Branko Milanović – Three types of literature regarding the world of AI

Economics, politics, and philosophy for a new era

Branko Milanović is an economist specialised in development and inequality. His latest book, The Great Global Transformation: National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World , was published November 2025.

Cross-posed from Branko Milanović’s blog Global Inequality and More 3.0

I feel somewhat embarrassed to contribute to the deluge of the articles on artificial intelligence. I did my part already: in a piece that looked at how digital communication is changing everyday life in China , in another on how Marx and neo-classics might look at the role of artificial intelligence , and more recently on what would be a social structure of a new dystopian society some people fear . This last piece, combined with my writings on US homoploutia and additional contributions by Nils Gilman, is the basis of a joint article about to be published in Noema magazine.

So why do I write again? Do I have anything new to say? In truth, not. But I would like to try to systematize the writings on AI because there are many pieces that deal with everything mixed up, with all possible and imaginable effects of AI. This is exactly the type of writings we have when faced with an important phenomenon whose contours can be guessed only vaguely. But at least we should be able to distinguish between different issues and corresponding literature that AI brings up.

First, there are economic and sociological articles about the impact of AI. They deal with the increase of the share of national income going to capital, and surplus population that may be displaced by AI and unable to find new jobs. AI is viewed here as any other labor-substituting technology: it reduces –for a given overall output—labor input. Still, it may be complementary to some kinds of labor while substitute for others. We mostly see nowadays the substitution part: software programmers, translators, lawyer assistants, taxi drivers. teachers etc. But there may be also people whose skills may be enhanced by AI, and who may thus command a higher wage. Nevertheless, the overall share received by capital is likely to increase because the capital intensity of production (the K/L ratio) will go up, and the profit rate may remain the same, or even increase—and for sure, we believe, it will not go down so as to offset the entire increase in capital intensity of production. Income of capitalists is likely to increase because AI companies are owned by actual people and these people, like shareholders in general, are well-off. Thus the rise in the capital share also means rising incomes of the rich and higher inequality of income.

What can be done then? There are, in my opinions, three possible ways to deal with it.

(A) Introduce guaranteed minimum income for all the surplus population released from jobs. This may solve the economic problem but may lead to psychological or sociological problems. I wrote about them before, so there is no need to repeat it here.

(B) Spread ownership of capital more widely by, for example, giving to each citizen a non-resalable equity in top AI companies. If capital share goes up but more people, at various income levels, own capital, overall income inequality need not increase.

(C) Nationalize AI companies. This seems a reasonable option given what the proponents and researchers of AI are saying: that the competition among different companies is so intense, the monetary gains tantalizing close and enormous so that no one has the time nor interest to look at potentially catastrophic consequences that the adaptive AI may bring to the entire humanity. The more we believe that AI may cause non-specified and unpredictable problems, the stronger the argument for its control by the state. Profits generated by AI may be placed in a sovereign fund with proceeds to be distributed to all citizens. Options B and C are similar in distributional outcomes, but the key difference is in the control. Under B, companies are not controlled by any outside entity. Under C, they are, and they are so not primarily for economic reasons. This brings us to the next issue–beyond economics.

The second strand of literature looks at the ideology of key founders in the AI industry, and (it may be a bit exaggerated to say) at the AI movement. An example of this literature is a recent excellent essay (“Reading Max Weber in the Age of AI”) by Nicholas Mulder . The ideology of founders is here perhaps more important than the ideology of earlier inventors and industrialists (Edison, Tesla, Ford or Carnegie), because the founders do not see AI just as a simple labor-replacement technology but as a force that would fundamentally change our lives and even redefine what it means to be human. When dealing with such life-changing events, the ideology of those who are leading us to that future requires some scrutiny. Quinn Slobodian and Ben Taroff do this in “Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed ”. The book looks at the ideology of Silicon Valley tycoons because it is their view of the world that drives the new technologies. Technologies are not neutral, but political. Money is indeed one of the incentives, but not the only one. A mixture of millennialism, eugenics, search for utopia and for a spread of the specie beyond the confines of the Earth, are all elements we find among the founders’ views. These ideas may matter to us not only through the technology they are developing, but also through their readiness to use political means and political power which they increasingly have, to bring about a society that may be consistent with the new technologies. Or at least, to bring about the society they like. This is transforming political life in many countries. The founders seem to reinforce the trend toward depoliticization which was already present during neoliberal globalization (by e.g. extracting from popular control many bodies allegedly run better by experts). Silicon Valley tycoons would like to be exempted from popular control much more than that. The entire political life can be replaced by technologically-made decisions. If economic companies bloom under centralized control of superior managers and owners, why would not similarly smart technological decisions make societies more efficient?

The third strand of thought is philosophical. It asks the question raised a few days ago in a form of alarm by Jacob Coxon , one of the Anthropic researchers, namely that AI robots may at one point, when their actions are entirely autonomous, finish off the humans. A similar idea is expressed in a nice paper by Matthew Lowenstein (“The Obsolescence of the Horse: Predicting the Future of Humanity in the World Dominated by Artificial Intelligence”) who views humans as horses of yesterday. Horses multiplied over the ages as they were used by humans for many things from agriculture to transport. But as the areas where horses were used were mechanized, horses lost their utility and their number in the world plummeted. Could not, Lowenstein implies, humans be kept for a while but as the superior race of AIs finds them of less and less use, gradually be reduced in numbers and perhaps even eliminated?

A similar line of thought looks at humans and wonders if we might have been created by a different specie whom we, once sufficiently powerful, eliminated. Finally, this line of thinking –into which I will not further indulge since I do not have enough knowledge—leads us to ask questions such as what is the definition of life and whether mental and physical world may be entirely separated.

And, for the end, we cannot totally leave aside the possibility that AI will not live up to the promises and fears it currently generates. Not only may it not become as profitable as its creators and owners claim—it could instead become a huge financial bubble. It could happen even that its economic effects are overestimated. I do not think that the analogy holds fully but I do remember the craziness of even very educated and smart people as Y2K approached. Stores were supposed to run out of goods, hungry people to roam cities in search of food, and planes not able to fly. But in that case, we went back to the prior reality rather quickly as January 1, 2000 was followed 24 hours later by January 2, 2000.

____________________________

BRAVE NEW EUROPE is one of the very few Resistance Media in Europe. We publish expert analyses and reports by some of the leading thinkers from across the world who you will not find in state and corporate mainstream media. Support us in our work.

To donate please go HERE