One of life's paradoxes is that supposedly very smart people often do the dumbest things. The leadership of the Big Tech & AI companies are a case in point. They've sold themselves as human job shredders to investors, yet seem surprised at the backlash. Having the gall to refuse to pay taxes, and also expecting their profits to be further subsidized by consumers' jacked up electricity bills only adds to the public's resentment.

But their short-sightedness is even worse. They expect to be the biggest stock market companies in human history, while simultaneously creating unemployment levels somewhere north of 25% and climbing.

Now for the US firms the tide has turned, and whatever happens, their old 2026 agenda is dead for good. They can either embrace the change they are creating with honesty, or the people will do it for them. The days of selling investors a future where they profit from automating employment, and then play a game with everyone else where they deny saying as much are over.

What is true for AI in 2026, will soon be true for physical work and robotics. The clock is ticking for human employment when it comes to driving jobs and unskilled work, too.

Will this all end in Universal Basic Income? Who knows, but if not, it will either be something like it, or societal collapse. Unsurprisingly it seems people don't like the latter option, and are willing to vote for representatives who are against it, too.

Time for the Big Tech and the AI companies to read the room.