During the AI takeoff and singularity, the cost curve of AI tools created a self-reinforcing divergence. Those who adopted AI early and effectively gained compounding advantages — better decisions, faster execution, broader capabilities, exponential returns. Those who were even slightly behind fell further behind at an accelerating rate.
At a critical threshold, the gap became impossible to close. The AI-augmented pulled so far ahead in wealth, capability, and access that the non-augmented could never catch up regardless of effort. This wasn't a gradual slide — it was a phase transition, a moment where the trajectory became irreversible.
The middle class, defined for centuries as the population between rich and poor, ceased to exist in any meaningful sense. Society bifurcated into those who own and leverage AI capital and those who don't. The practical consequences: there is no first class on commercial aircraft because the wealthy own private vehicles and the poor pack into economy. There are no luxury cars because the poor buy the cheapest autonomous pod and the rich have self-driving aircraft. Every consumer market that previously served a spectrum now serves only two extremes.
What does social mobility mean in this world? What does "working hard" get you when the person next to you has an AI that works a million times harder? What does democracy look like when cognitive and economic inequality is measured in orders of magnitude rather than percentages?