ecursive self–improvement is the technical term for the use of AI, to improve AI—a technique that exponentially accelerates AI capabilities. One thing that became clear in Davos this year, we have already entered this era. The horizon for massive job automation has moved ever closer. The CEOs of Microsoft and Anthropic predict that within 18 months AI will be able to do any white–collar job better than most humans. Already AI is doing almost all the coding. Software engineers, highly rewarded workers until very recently, watch their incomes and opportunities rapidly diminish. With advances in robotics many blue–collar jobs will also become obsolete within the next 10–to–15 years. Liberal democracies are completely unprepared for a job apocalypse. The argument that AI will create new jobs is moot and completely missing the point that AI is a general–purpose technology that can do almost all tasks humans do faster and better, without rest or vacations. AI is the ultimate worker.
The only ideas for dealing with the unprecedented economic and societal dislocation currently discussed in the public domain come from the left side of the political spectrum and entail further expansion of state control in the economy, higher taxation, greater regulation, as well as cradle to grave support via the utopia of universal basic income. All these proposed ideas and policies erode individual liberty and replace—gradually but surely—a free society with a socialist one. Signs of a shift to state authoritarianism are already visible in the UK where the Labour government is expanding the Online Safety Act thereby restricting free speech under the guise of child protection. Meanwhile, young people unable to find well–paid jobs (if any at all), or ever start climbing the property ladder, are seduced by false promises of “free stuff. ”When you are jobless, hopeless, and desperate the siren song of a caring government coming to your rescue is very seductive. Alas, it is also a song bearing dire consequences, as history has consistently shown us when the heavy hammer of a socialist state quashes and extinguishes individual freedom, aspiration, and talent.
We need fresh ideas that preserve liberty while distributing as much and as wide as possible the enormous economic bounty of automation. That is true.
But it must be in a competitive way.
All of the “solutions” we’ve seen proposed for a job apocalypse, which so far all come from the left politically, recycle an old repertoire of failed remedies to manage what they see as mainly a socio–economic threat. We need innovative free market solutions that view AI as the economic abundance machine that frees people from drudgery and material need, and ushers a new civilization where we all live more meaningful and interesting lives. This new perspective must be radical and centered on the value of individuals unshackled by state control. Unless we seek and implement such human–centric solutions, the future of western civilization, and of humanity, will remain bleak.
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Apprehensively we stand in the face of self–improving AI
Image courtesy of Getty Images, via Unsplash+
March 3, 2026
After a month to reflect, members of our delegation to this year’s World Economic Forum shared their thoughts on what struck and stayed with them most. For Dr. George Zarkadakis, it is time to move beyond recycled, discredited solutions for the coming AI “job apocalypse.”
R
ecursive self–improvement is the technical term for the use of AI, to improve AI—a technique that exponentially accelerates AI capabilities. One thing that became clear in Davos this year, we have already entered this era. The horizon for massive job automation has moved ever closer. The CEOs of Microsoft and Anthropic predict that within 18 months AI will be able to do any white–collar job better than most humans. Already AI is doing almost all the coding. Software engineers, highly rewarded workers until very recently, watch their incomes and opportunities rapidly diminish. With advances in robotics many blue–collar jobs will also become obsolete within the next 10–to–15 years. Liberal democracies are completely unprepared for a job apocalypse. The argument that AI will create new jobs is moot and completely missing the point that AI is a general–purpose technology that can do almost all tasks humans do faster and better, without rest or vacations. AI is the ultimate worker.
The only ideas for dealing with the unprecedented economic and societal dislocation currently discussed in the public domain come from the left side of the political spectrum and entail further expansion of state control in the economy, higher taxation, greater regulation, as well as cradle to grave support via the utopia of universal basic income. All these proposed ideas and policies erode individual liberty and replace—gradually but surely—a free society with a socialist one. Signs of a shift to state authoritarianism are already visible in the UK where the Labour government is expanding the Online Safety Act thereby restricting free speech under the guise of child protection. Meanwhile, young people unable to find well–paid jobs (if any at all), or ever start climbing the property ladder, are seduced by false promises of “free stuff. ”When you are jobless, hopeless, and desperate the siren song of a caring government coming to your rescue is very seductive. Alas, it is also a song bearing dire consequences, as history has consistently shown us when the heavy hammer of a socialist state quashes and extinguishes individual freedom, aspiration, and talent.
We need fresh ideas that preserve liberty while distributing as much and as wide as possible the enormous economic bounty of automation. That is true.
But it must be in a competitive way.
All of the “solutions” we’ve seen proposed for a job apocalypse, which so far all come from the left politically, recycle an old repertoire of failed remedies to manage what they see as mainly a socio–economic threat. We need innovative free market solutions that view AI as the economic abundance machine that frees people from drudgery and material need, and ushers a new civilization where we all live more meaningful and interesting lives. This new perspective must be radical and centered on the value of individuals unshackled by state control. Unless we seek and implement such human–centric solutions, the future of western civilization, and of humanity, will remain bleak.
