Douglas Rushkoff argues that tech billionaires promote visions of AI-driven utopia while privately preparing for social and environmental collapse, as evidenced by investments in bunkers and space colonization. He claims elites use AI narratives not to save humanity but to ensure their own survival, shifting risks and harms onto the wider public. Far from ending human labor, AI often converts work into more hidden and exploitative forms, involving extensive manual labor in global supply chains and resource extraction. Rushkoff criticizes this dynamic as reinforcing inequality and a transhumanist ideology that treats most people as expendable. Other experts caution against extreme interpretations, acknowledging both the oversimplified optimism of AI proponents and the significant hidden costs—environmental and human—of sustaining advanced technologies. Labor market data already show displacement concentrated in low-wage, low-leverage roles, with wage stagnation and direct job loss. While some remain optimistic about AI’s transformative potential, there is widespread agreement that uneven outcomes and disruptions are likely. Experts emphasize the need for governance and policy interventions, such as redistribution measures, to manage the transition and ensure equitable impacts.