--- title: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else description: Tech moguls like Dario Amodei and Elon Musk promote AI as a solution to humanity's greatest problems, but economist Branko Milanović's analysis suggests... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/silicon-valley-sees-ai-as-the-solution-for-everyone-else-lrvblqjyk twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else | daily.dev og:description: Tech moguls like Dario Amodei and Elon Musk promote AI as a solution to humanity's greatest problems, but economist Branko Milanović's analysis suggests... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/silicon-valley-sees-ai-as-the-solution-for-everyone-else-lrvblqjyk og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/lRVbLQJyk.png og:image:alt: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 4 min read · 51 upvotes · 12 comments ## Summary Tech moguls like Dario Amodei and Elon Musk promote AI as a solution to humanity's greatest problems, but economist Branko Milanović's analysis suggests unchecked AI deployment would instead produce a deeply stratified four-class society. At the bottom would be a 'surplus population' of displaced workers needing to be kept pacified; above them a precarious service-sector working class; then a growing 'homoploutic' professional class; and at the top, a new tech aristocracy of thousands of ultra-wealthy owners. The author argues this outcome stems from Silicon Valley's 'solutionism' mindset — a STEM-driven ideology that treats complex social problems as computable puzzles — and that AI's economic gains are unlikely to be broadly shared. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 74 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-08-05). **TL;DR:** Commenters are broadly skeptical of both the article's framing and Silicon Valley's AI optimism, debating whether AI-driven unemployment is a real near-term threat or a temporary transitional phase, with many expressing genuine concern for workers already being hurt today. **Sentiment:** 10% positive · 35% mixed · 55% skeptical **The case for** - Some argue AI adoption will eventually level the playing field and trigger a boom period for workers once it becomes standardized, similar to how computers did. - A few note that human connection and the 'human touch' remain hard to replicate, suggesting demand for human workers won't vanish entirely. **The pushback** - Real workers are already experiencing layoffs, hiring freezes, and outsourcing pressure right now, making long-term optimism cold comfort. - The economics of AI investment only make sense if massive labor displacement is the goal, raising questions about who actually benefits. - Sustained high unemployment historically correlates with serious social instability, and a 5–10 year disruption period could be very dangerous. - AI may simply generate more bureaucratic busywork — documents no one reads, generated and summarized by other AIs — rather than meaningful productivity gains. - Globalization already limits governments' ability to protect workers, and AI compounds that powerlessness. **By community** - hackernews (skeptical): Commenters are divided between cautious optimism (AI as a temporary leverage phase that normalizes) and serious concern about near-term harm to workers and long-term structural inequality, with the critical voices carrying more weight. **Hottest debate:** Whether AI-driven unemployment is a short-lived transitional phase that eventually benefits workers or a structural shift that will cause lasting harm to a large portion of the workforce. **Open questions** - Who will have enough purchasing power to buy the output of AI-augmented businesses if large numbers of workers are displaced? - Can governments realistically regulate or slow AI deployment given their diminished enforcement power in a globalized economy? - Will the productivity gains from AI actually be shared broadly, or captured almost entirely by capital owners? **Highlights** > Even before AI, there was a serious hiring problem in the United States. Companies seem hell bent on not hiring full time employees at a livable wage. I don't blame the technology, but I do blame the greed of business owners and investors. While its easy to look at the big picture and long term and say everything will all work out, there are so many individuals who are being hurt because of layoffs, reduced hiring, etc. My team is stressed out because they feel an axe hanging over their heads because private equity has declared no more hiring US developers. It's either AI or outsourcing. We should try to be empathetic because real people are losing their livelihoods and the long term isn't going to help them one bit. > — [amykhar on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49183913) > In the long term the sun will go red giant and all life on earth will die. In the short term I still need to eat, and tech integration that takes 20 years in the economy might leave me totally fucked! > — [Espressosaurus on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49184080) > The economics of AI investment don't make sense without the promise of vast displacement of labor. There's a ceiling on how much value can be created for a company simply by them using AI to crank out a higher throughput of TPS reports. > — [add-sub-mul-div on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49183858) > It's a globalization problem that countries have a hard time creating policy against. Countries don't have the enforcement power that they used to. The best we have come up with is using our own markets as leverage. In a hundred years I imagine wealth and income will look much more uniform across the world. Unfortunately, right now, we are stuck competing with people who can earn much less than people in the US. Now we have to worry about this AI disaster waiting to happen because countries have no real power to stop it. They say it looks like AI won't destroy jobs, but I think really we are just watching the various legs on a table be kicked out. It will still stand until it doesn't. > — [mrdependable on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49184571) > I don't find the "AI will cause mass unemployment" argument compelling, in fact I see the opposite as being true. The reason we are talking so much about that now is that at the current level of productivity, we just don't need as many humans to do the work, as companies can use AI as leverage to not hire as many people. This i feel will be a short lived period where not everyone has adopted AI to the fullest and thus simply having AI gives you leverage to not hire as many people and still stay competitive. The same thing happened with computers writ large, during the early days the folks that used computers had massive leverage over those that did not. But what happens in 5-10 years once most orgs standardize on that leverage and everyone has it. All of a sudden that advantage AI gave you over others evaporates and you're right back to how things have always been, that is more humans give you more leverage. I think once AI is broadly adopted and standardized, there will be an insane boom period for workers. > — [\_fat\_santa on hackernews · 7 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49183752) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49182985) · 37 points · 74 comments ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@confidentcoding** · 6 upvotes > Thankfully, most of everything that Silicon Valley "envisions" ends up in the dumpster just a few years after it launches. **@elmarchavez** · 6 upvotes > That future is bleak and the fact that this could happen is scary. But most of the times, I just try to focus on the good side. We may never truly know the future but what we do know is the current skills we have and what we can do to upskill it to improve ourselves. If new jobs were to come, being confident and ready to take on new challenges would be the most lucrative skill you could hone today, whether with AI or not. The key phrase here is "to be ready". **@allinonetools** · 6 upvotes > Good reminder that technical progress and social progress aren't automatically the same thing. **@improvedoutlook** · 5 upvotes > To me the author's opinion is just as speculative as the leaders of AI companies and it's another version of the same problem...no one really knows how all of this will shake out. We have too many self-proclaimed prognosticators and it would be nice if more folks could just own it rather than painting a future that's either dystopian or fanciful. It's not likely to go down the way anyone thinks precisely. Focus on what you can do and don't worry about things you can't personally control. **@daniel8000** · 3 upvotes > I sell x. All people need x, believe me. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The only Permanent Underclass are the ones who believe it is permanent](https://daily.dev/posts/the-only-permanent-underclass-are-the-ones-who-believe-it-is-permanent-txeenlwdl) · swyx · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Who will buy your services if you fire us all?](https://daily.dev/posts/who-will-buy-your-services-if-you-fire-us-all--0m4ict1uf) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/silicon-valley-sees-ai-as-the-solution-for-everyone-else-lrvblqjyk) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/silicon-valley-sees-ai-as-the-solution-for-everyone-else-lrvblqjyk","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/silicon-valley-sees-ai-as-the-solution-for-everyone-else-lrvblqjyk"},"datePublished":"2026-08-05T15:07:36.700Z","dateModified":"2026-08-05T17:54:51.900Z","description":"Tech moguls like Dario Amodei and Elon Musk promote AI as a solution to humanity's greatest problems, but economist Branko Milanović's analysis suggests...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/4b0c173f70d83ba85cf53d95c1c282a8?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/4b0c173f70d83ba85cf53d95c1c282a8?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":12,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/silicon-valley-sees-ai-as-the-solution-for-everyone-else-lrvblqjyk","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":51},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":12}],"keywords":"ai,startup","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/silicon-valley-sees-ai-as-the-solution-for-everyone-else-lrvblqjyk","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Thankfully, most of everything that Silicon Valley “envisions” ends up in the dumpster just a few years after it launches.","datePublished":"2026-08-05T20:29:55.146Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/lRVbLQJyk#c-ugFd2BN6V","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Lars Faye | Confident Coding","url":"https://daily.dev/confidentcoding","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OGZu5DEc--/f_auto/v1772569630/avatars/avatar_umWZ9aQAng34qk5aaJl2q?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":6}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"That future is bleak and the fact that this could happen is scary. But most of the times, I just try to focus on the good side. We may never truly know the future but what we do know is the current skills we have and what we can do to upskill it to improve ourselves. If new jobs were to come, being confident and ready to take on new challenges would be the most lucrative skill you could hone today, whether with AI or not. The key phrase here is “to be ready”.","datePublished":"2026-08-05T17:32:56.462Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/lRVbLQJyk#c-7JRq7xpZN","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Elmar Chavez","url":"https://daily.dev/elmarchavez","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--7PjH979T--/f_auto/v1780994221/avatars/avatar_bK85rJb2OXXID2LX2wi5y?_a=BAMAMiWQ0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":6}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Good reminder that technical progress and social progress aren’t automatically the same thing.","datePublished":"2026-08-06T03:14:08.531Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/lRVbLQJyk#c-oqIW9Mm5O","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"AllInOneTools","url":"https://daily.dev/allinonetools","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--4ZT8QlF0--/f_auto/v1769790028/avatars/avatar_igzBsWloJeaegzm9bQltZ?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":6}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"To me the author’s opinion is just as speculative as the leaders of AI companies and it’s another version of the same problem…no one really knows how all of this will shake out. We have too many self-proclaimed prognosticators and it would be nice if more folks could just own it rather than painting a future that’s either dystopian or fanciful. It’s not likely to go down the way anyone thinks precisely. Focus on what you can do and don’t worry about things you can’t personally control.","datePublished":"2026-08-06T15:15:36.477Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/lRVbLQJyk#c-ScTSvwA2e","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Mark Owens","url":"https://daily.dev/improvedoutlook","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--gTeiQ-4Q--/f_auto/v1744212844/avatars/avatar_a3jXrhNvqTvcDRfL6sXIV"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I sell x. All people need x, believe me.","datePublished":"2026-08-06T21:21:16.535Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/lRVbLQJyk#c-oz3uTxq8x","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel","url":"https://daily.dev/daniel8000","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--F_RltCZK--/f_auto/v1738746891/avatars/avatar_SOwG1kJqf6HK6TkGmZH45"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}}]} ```