This Is Not a Joke: It’s AI
We can no longer view the disruption caused by AI and robotics through the narrow lens of "will human jobs disappear?" A more critical question is how human labor income has historically circulated within local economies, and where that money flows when robots replace workers. Historically, a taxi driver earned an income by driving. With that income, they shopped for family groceries, paid rent, dined at restaurants, visited auto repair shops, and funded children’s education and daily expenses. A driver's earnings circulated back into local grocery stores, restaurants, landlords, clinics, and small businesses. This circular flow of a single paycheck supporting multiple household expenditures forms the baseline pillar supporting a city’s economy. Now, cyber taxis or robotaxis are arriving. While passenger fares previously went toward local drivers' wages, those revenues may increasingly concentrate in software platforms, AI tech companies, fleet owners, cloud services,...