Who Benefits When AI Takes the Wheel?

I’ll never forget my first Waymo ride—it felt like stepping into tomorrow. The car glided through each turn and stop with effortless elegance. No clunky jolts, no forced chit-chat—just the gentle hum of cutting-edge tech. In that moment, I feel I was living in the future - at a world where machines free us from life’s tedious grind.

But at every hangout, that inevitable question creeps in: “Do you think AI will steal our jobs?” The unease is palpable—a quiet dread running beneath the conversation. AI isn’t just crunching numbers anymore; it’s diagnosing illnesses, drafting legal briefs, and writing code. Jobs once thought unshakable now feel like sandcastles facing the tide.

Still, do we truly miss the drudgery? Isn’t it thrilling to imagine a future where machines handle the grunt work, granting us more time to spend with loved ones, to explore the world’s wonders, or to immerse ourselves in what makes life meaningful? The true power of AI isn’t in what it replaces but in what it unlocks—more creativity, more purpose, more freedom. The real question is: will we make it happen?

We’ve seen this story before. The Industrial Revolution replaced grueling labor with machines, driving massive growth. But the wealth didn’t trickle down. It pooled at the top, leaving many behind, overworked and underpaid. Progress for a few came at the expense of many.

The AI revolution offers tremendous potential, from curing diseases to creating art, enhancing human life through innovations like early disease detection. However, if AI’s economic gains benefit only the elite while others are left behind, we risk repeating past mistakes. Solutions must go beyond universal income to ensure that AI advancements uplift everyone, not just a select few.