“You have four months to make it,” one YouTube video cries. “You have two years to start a podcast,” another Twitter user screams into the desperate void for ragebait and engagement. The year 2027 seems to be a popular timeframe for when the “permanent underclass” settles in for eternity. That is, if Leopold Aschenbrenner and his findings in the paper on Situational Awareness come true.

What they have almost entirely neglected to consider is any actual “awareness” of what’s happening outside their offices in San Francisco. Beyond that, my theory is that a permanent underclass isn’t something to fear. As per usual, social media posts and news articles do not reflect lived reality.

But you already knew that, right? Right?

Anyway, the idea behind a permanent underclass is that AI and automation will take the livelihood of hundreds of millions, trapping the undereducated and those without access to “compute” in a class of people unable to find stability. All the while, technofeudalism and an elite few strip them of dignity by slurping up all their data under infinite surveillance.

What we have witnessed since the launch of ChatGPT is a sloppening of the internet. The dead internet theory becomes more real each day as bots take over social media platforms. Prediction markets and sports gambling become avenues for tech VCs to hedge their bets while waiting for profits on their AI investments, further worsening the speed at which young people see their future flashing before their eyes.

The various pendulums swing faster and faster, making cycles and trends short-lived to the point of mesmerizing anyone with the pace of change. This can lead to mass psychosis, and at worst, a deepening of disreality. This is the recipe for a growing permanent underclass mired by endless surveillance at the cost of humanity.

But there is a better world that emerges from the mess, and we’re already seeing it form.

Here, we will explore the history of the permanent underclass, how coordination and inherent privacy transform new third spaces, and the ways we’re beginning to see this shift occur across the internet.

“By underclass, I mean a population cut off from mainstream American life–not cut off from its trappings (television and consumer goods penetrate everywhere), but living a life in which the elemental building blocks of a life–productive work, family, community–exist in fragmented and corrupted forms. Most members of the underclass have low incomes, but its distinguishing characteristics are not poverty and unmet physical needs, but social disorganization, a poverty of social networks and valued roles, and a Hobbesian kind of individualism in which trust and cooperation are hard to come by and isolation is common.” In a 1990 paper, The Underclass Revisited, at the American Enterprise Institute, Charles Murray describes the life of a society already forming the outer edges of a permanent underclass.

Murray writes that the stages of an underclass are described by three main indicators: criminality, dropout from the labor force among low-income young males, and illegitimacy among low-income young women.

Hmmm, sounds a bit familiar. If you replace absent parental relationships with the iPad generation’s fixation on short-form video and Gen Z’s path to success through social media and gambling, you see brainrot and a failure to contribute meaningfully to their communities, all due to systemic neglect established during prior generations. All this leads to a class of people who are undereducated and unprepared for a future of collapsing career options and automation, trapping two or more generations in uncertainty about their future without taking extreme risks.

Blame it on racism, market economics, inequality, failed governments, rich-get-richer, whatever you choose, they’re all systemic problems that have consistently built up like a Jenga tower ready to collapse at any moment.

Further reading:

The Ghetto Underclass: Social Science Perspectives (1989)

“The New Underclass: A Contemporary Sociological Dilemma.” The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 1, 1985

Thirty-five years ago, in The Underclass Revisited, Murray pointed to such inequalities forcing their way into the so-called underclass via joblessness, broken homes, and illegitimacy among young women. By 2025, we see this problem broadening to include both men and women, low- and middle-skilled workers, recent graduates, and anyone not in a position to reskill themselves constantly.

The thing is, as these AI companies reduce upward mobility and eliminate clerical work, manufacturing, mid-skill office work, and routine service work, they do little to acknowledge new opportunities outside of vague promises or provide function for those left empty-handed by such rapid change in labor markets.

Screens filled with mass distraction replace any clear answer to the future of meaning and purpose for those displaced.

This only exacerbates the problems faced by a potential exploding underclass, which could become permanent due to the forces of automation, robotics, and eventually, AI smarter-than-all-humans.

And it’s not just the US that will feel the pain from a broadening permanent underclass. In Asia, though the risk is generally lower than in the US, women especially face an uncertain stake in inequality as manufacturing, textile, and footwear factories augment or displace, where a vast majority of workers are women without transition pathways. Whereas in the US, women take up a large portion of clerical, office work, and education, all of which are poised to be heavily augmented or automated away. What subsection of the population is creating the AI? Take a guess.

I don’t personally give in to the doom and gloom of an underclass incapable of adapting to a changing world. Rather, I see people capable of adapting to times of uncertainty by building communities that prioritize localism for global resilience.

At the same time, I also believe the concept of a permanent underclass has been turned into a joke online due solely to heightened fear and uncertainty by the tech crowd. Those building applications with AI and mass surveillance meant to foster inequities and an immobile class have turned it into a meme as cope.

Sure, Sam Altman believes we’ll freak out for a minute and then adapt to AGI or whatever other label we throw onto the hope of a multi-trillion-dollar industry. And, like I said, I broadly agree with him. But without a clear path to new skills, a movement to re-search for purpose and meaning, or at minimum a promise for upward mobility and agency, a difficult road lies ahead for millions facing such disruption.

So how can anyone in the line of fire be sure to survive the next 5-20 years without bleeding out on the table of market economics?

The Permanent Underclass manifesto (author unknown) provides some answers to such a societal-level crossroads.

“This phenomenon is less about individual shortcomings and more about a systemic realignment—one where productivity, creativity, and human connection are redefined.”

However lofty the views of this manifesto may be in the face of infinite automation and structural changes to a world with millions of robots roaming the streets, it does lay out some interesting plot points on the graph of liminal humanity.

As AI becomes more accessible, those displaced may find a new calling in the arts, sciences, and entrepreneurial endeavors: opportunities that were not available when in pure survival mode through menial jobs and tasks. This means (potentially) less gig work as we know it today, less inequality, and more collective mobility toward local and global success.

While we have lost any semblance of a monoculture, we can begin to nurture many cultures where our values align through movement and experience.

Through a realignment of values led by the Meaning Alignment Institute, it is believed that we’ll see a resurgence in labor aligned with what truly matters. Such a full-stack alignment, as they call it, does indeed redefine the ways we coordinate and adapt our futures together.

As ever, I believe that community builders and the mobility of social cooperation are the answer to many of this world’s problems, and Ethereum coordination is the catalyst for global resilience.

When we learn to become better neighbors, we understand that money, while useful, must transform into a vehicle for collective power, fostering cohesion through value alignment rather than compliance.

The walls of social media are cracking. A study commissioned by the Financial Times recently went viral, showing that global social media usage peaked in 2022 and then declined (everywhere except the US, where it continues to rise) by nearly 10% among 250,000 adults aged 16 and over in 50 countries.

Factors for this decline include: mental health concerns, burnout from endless scrolling, and more intentional usage. The study shows that although there is a decline, we generally still find social media useful, even if it is cumbersome due to fighting the onslaught of AI-generated posts. Many continue to use it, but in different ways than in previous years, such as for news, messaging friends, or finding brands that align with their interests.

Based on comments under posts praising this decline, like the viral post by Greg Isenberg, it seems people on these social media platforms are happy about it. What a dazzling paradox. Praising a decline of usage while on said platform… hmmm.

The GWI admits blind spots in the data, admitting that they do not categorize WhatsApp and Telegram as social media. Both of which have absolutely massive DAUs in those so-called declining countries. The thing is, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord are also where many in-person community activations are being coordinated.

That’s where I believe this trend, at least in the comments section, shows a need for renewal: local community gatherings. And it’s why I’ve focused on in-person community building for the last seven months. To prove that this type of storytelling is not only desired but can also eliminate barriers at a local level toward greater collective resilience.

Kimiya Mag is designed to showcase Ethereum localism by fostering communities across Asia that host daily events. These events bring together travelers and locals in various cities to explore how allocation mechanisms like retroactive and quadratic funding offer a re-examination of values, purpose, and meaning as AI and continuous learning disrupt our cultures.

As more people yearn for connection, coordinating with Ethereum requires less screen time and more inner peace, seeking authenticity in whatever work we choose to tackle next as individuals within the groups we form. That’s how Kimiya Mag will continue to facilitate this alchemical transition, through longform essays, interviews, and research reports.

However bleak our futures may seem or how close we are to the brink of a permanent underclass, there’s always another essay written by a frontier AI lab that will genuinely shock you to the realities we face today.

Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark recently published a talk given at ‘The Curve’ conference titled Technical Optimism and Appropriate Fear where he describes present fear of “a real and mysterious creature, not a simple and predictable machine.”

In this essay, we see Jack wrestle with the reality of growing a creature so unknown, so uncertain, and real (of his own creation) that, like any fairytale, it is in need of taming before becoming more than just a pile of clothes on a chair.

The more I’ve studied AI and tried my best to keep up with the latest research papers, the more I’ve come to join in Jack’s fear of what’s on the horizon, which is what makes the research I’m doing on meaning and purpose so dire. I see the incoming wave of grief, our inability to adapt to rapid changes, our lack of focus, daily distractions, and the political circus.

At the same time, I remain an optimist; I am aware that, as AI advances in scale, the concept of work collapses and dissolves into something new and different. When I talk to young people here in Vietnam about the realities of AI and their futures, the responses I get are often obliviousness. They’ve made plans for a career, and many have yet to consider altering those plans.

We must hold a healthy dose of fear to keep us grounded in reality, but there’s no need to be afraid. Not if we have each other. Not if we remain optimistic that the systems we create serve others. There will be no permanent underclass if we build not with greedy incentives, but with humanity and care at the center.