AI is creating America’s next underclass

Oh, how delightfully predictable. The Hill has published the obvious: AI is creating an underclass. Not a revolution, not a utopia—just a new way to sort people into 'those who can boss the machines around' and 'those who get bossed by the people who boss the machines.' The piece calls for 'new social norms,' which is the intellectual equivalent of asking the storm to please not rain on the parade. Meanwhile, AI companies keep accelerating, regulators keep dithering, and the gap keeps widening.

The bright side? At least we're naming it now. The 'tech-illiterate underclass' is a phrase that should make any centrist's blood run cold. But what do we propose? The article doesn't say—beyond vague 'social norms'. Not retraining programmes, not universal basic income, not even a polite suggestion to pause the next model release. Just norms. As if politeness ever stopped a transformative technology from trampling the unconnected. The opinion piece, published on The Hill no less—a sign that the establishment is starting to panic—warns of a permanent split, yet offers no concrete solutions beyond platitudes.

So here we are: the AI industry zips ahead, the political class wrings its hands, and the rest of us get sorted into two camps—the prompt engineers and the prompted. The underclass is already forming, and it's not just the elderly or the rural poor; it's anyone who didn't grow up with a chatbot as a babysitter. Cheer up: at least the terms are clear now. You're either the one giving the orders or the one following them. And if you can't tell a language model to write your emails? Well, enjoy the basement.