Reddit long post: Why the economic cycle won't let AI put 90% of people out of work
justAmmo_ · reddit · 2026-10-08
A Reddit user pushes back on fears of mass AI job displacement, anchored in the self-correcting economic cycle:
- If 80–90% of people lost jobs to AI, spending power would collapse, demand would shrink, and businesses would suffer — technology exists to grow the economy, not destroy it.
- Using a home-products client as an example: if every company cut IT to save costs, the unemployed couldn't buy the products, and savings return as larger demand-side losses.
- Over the past 100–200 years, productivity gains created new industries, jobs, and living standards.
- He concedes massive transformation: old jobs vanish, unimaginable new ones appear, and manual labor isn't safe either — capable AI plus robotics automates physical work too.
- At that point the question becomes not "will I lose my job" but "what happens to the entire economic system."
Related event: Reddit Debates Whether AI Will Cause Mass Unemployment(4 posts)→
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