By Paul Wallis
August 20, 2025
EDITOR AT LARGE
DIGITAL JOURNAL
OpenAI is working to put its artificial intelligence technology to work for countries around the world, entrenching it in systems before rivals such as DeepSeek can get footholds - Copyright AFP Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV
When profound social change happens, society tends to do everything backwards. The predictions are usually wrong. The future of an AI society is looking unreasonably optimistic and pessimistically unviable to the point of impossibility.
Predictions are all over the place amid noisy headlines and constant unasked-for punditry. We need to be honest about how change was misread and mismanaged for the last 100 years or so to see the risks of misreading and mismanaging it now.
Fighting change with pure negativity doesn’t work. The response to the Industrial Revolution was to smash the machines. We can see what resulted. The reaction to the global Digital Revolution was to belatedly whine about globalization.
Daily life had to change with each revolution. This process was unstoppable. Trying to enforce pre-industrial work practices didn’t work, either. People didn’t want to be chimney sweeps or dying mine workers. The 8-hour day eventually became the norm. Quality of life improved despite the society, rather than because of it.
In the 20th century, the realities of human life changed almost beyond recognition, and very quickly. Cities were built to enormous sizes by the industrial revolution and their functions were globalized and decentralized by the digital revolution.
The rest of human reality waddled along with all this barely-understood change. The logic and the logistics of societies followed the growth patterns. The physics of human life also adapted to practical needs. Jobs were based in cities and then simply went online.
Socially, change happened erratically and reluctantly. The glaring realities of industrialization and digitization eventually forced social change. The early predictions were too vague. Predictions about AI and society are also going out of date on a routine basis.
Misreading and mismanaging the future as usual
Governments and businesses didn’t actually write the script for the boom years. Nobody “decided” on a nuclear family model or Sitcom Society. They simply described the reality of change.
Reality got it right, and theory missed the target entirely.
The prosperous times weren’t a triumph of capitalism or socialism. They were a triumph of sanity and practical applications of sanity.
Change only works when it delivers value. The only meaningful metric is the relative value of the degree of change.
The 1950s were a huge leap in value from the 1930s. The whole perspective of life changed completely from the first industrialized half of the century. Predictions were basically sales pitches for everything from new TVs to washing machines. Sound familiar?
The big picture was barely visible. It was also the vaguest possible subject for planning and discussion. The result was a disorganized mess fed by economic gravity until it worked properly. The first century of an AI society will have to be an equally drastic departure from the past.
The medium for change is money.
Now, the biggest issue is AI vs how the new society will manage money.
Incomes, revenue, services, and the fundamentals of hand-to-mouth living need re-evaluation.
Does the world need a Universal Basic Income? It might, because the old 40 years of work can no longer be a realistic model.
What about education? Skills are necessary. AI can train people to do anything.
Health? A sick society can’t function. Yes, we’ve noticed. AI can manage huge numbers of health logistics. A no-brainer.
What about housing? AI could house people simply by matching vacancies to people.
Now we can define the problem of predicting an AI society:
Misreading change means mismanaging change.
The future doesn’t need anyone’s approval. It just needs to be understood.
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