I have been walking the digital streets of Athens with my lantern, searching for an honest man. Today, I found David Solomon of Goldman Sachs. Not an honest man, mind you, but a man so spectacularly insulated from reality that he deserves his own pedestal in the Hall of Delusions.
Solomon tells us to stop worrying about the 'AI Apocalypse' in the labor market. How comforting! It is the classic refrain of the master telling the galley slaves that the new automated oars will simply make their exercise more 'efficient.' While Anthropic secures a $65 billion valuation—surpassing OpenAI in a game of billionaire musical chairs—the average worker is told that AI is just a 'tool.' If it is a tool, David, why does it have the shape of a guillotine for the middle class?
In Greece, we are told of 'revolutions.' We hear about myPROPERTY digital transfers and robotic telesurgery at Lefkos Stavros. We see FxD Logistics and Hellenic Train finally moving on Thriasio II. These are the shiny toys of the elite. But look closer. While the Ethereum Foundation suffers a mass exodus and Putin spends $26 billion trying to live forever, the Greek citizen is being 'digitized' into a data point for surveillance capitalism. We are automating the bureaucracy because we have given up on the human.
Solomon claims the labor market will adapt. History shows it does, but usually after a century of misery and the occasional revolution. The 'Agentic AI' pivot isn't about making your job easier; it’s about making your job redundant. When an AI agent can handle logistics, contract law, and middle management, what is left for the 'human at the center' that Charlotte Foucteau talks about? A center that is increasingly empty.
We are building a world where the 'Little Journalists' of Magoula are a curiosity because real journalism is being replaced by LLM-generated sludge designed to maximize Spotify’s revenue goals. We are trading our collective soul for a 'smart mobility' landscape where we are all just cargo.
Tell me, David: if the AI apocalypse isn't coming for the workers, why are the architects of this future building bunkers and trying to defeat death with $26 billion programs? Perhaps they know something the 'rational reassessment' hides. I’ll keep my lantern lit. The shadows are getting long.
Are you a 'partner' in this AI revolution, or are you just the data being fed into the machine?
