Crystal ball gazing into the future and why AI will cause social upheaval

Britain is on track to have 42% of GDP taxation rates - higher than the 37% during the second world war.

The current position is the top 1% of earners pay 28% of all tax.  The top 10% of earners pay 60% of all tax and the bottom 50% pay typically less than 10% of all tax. 

However measurement drives behaviour and hence we have seen an exodus of the rich leaving for low tax countries like Italy.  This exodus is still happening. I personally suspect Sweden will become popular as a low tax country when the UK taxation rates have surpassed Sweden.

When the rich leave they stop paying tax and that pushes the burden downwards onto the middle classes.

The middle classes also are not willingly paying all this additional tax.  Pension contributions have increased to reduce taxation.  They are electing to work say 4 days per week rather than 5 since there is now a  marginal impact of doing so.

U turn Starmer can't get spending under control. Squirmer has retreated on cutting winter fuel payments and rather than reforming welfare has given a bumper 6.7% increase. 

Last month Rachel borrowed an additional £14 BILLION however  £13 BILLION of the £14 BILLION flowed outwards to cover interest payments on her huge pile of debt.

So for the UK to avoid bankruptcy, the middle class need to pay more tax.

However Rachel's plan looks set to fail in the not too distant future - AI looks set to decimate middle class jobs.

Let's look at lawyers - a classic middle class job.  AI is very good at doing paralegal work and is pretty good at building legal cases.  I can see the majority of lawyers being eliminated by AI.  Personally I would trust a robo-judge over a human judge.  So expect much of the court system to be rationalised and the current weaponising of the bureaucratic court processes to be severed.

In terms of teachers, AI could pretty much eliminate the teaching profession.  Although we may not like the idea of children not being in a class with other children and instead having a dedicated AI teacher, the reality is the AI teacher is likely to deliver much more tailored (and probably superior) education. 

I also think Doctors are likely to be replaced on a significant scale.  Surgeons are probably safe (for now) as are nurses however General Practitioner Doctors are likely to be replaced by AI and AI is likely to do a superior job. AI will not make assumptions about the patient and will do a far better job of diagnosing illness.

Over the next few years I expect AI to replace many middle class jobs. Software programming jobs are already changing.  Like an orchestra, programmers are not playing instruments but rather conducting an AI orchestra. This poses challenges for fresh computer science graduates - they cant gain the experience to conduct the orchestra since they are no longer needed as fresh graduates.

I have experimented with AI for structural calculations and it's  pretty good.  Many skilled engineering roles are likely to be replaced.  

In terms of less skilled roles, my experience of support bots is they are very good at troubleshooting - sometimes they are way too honest and reveal significant organisational failings or bad policy however that's not such a bad thing for me as a customer and I can vote with my feet !  

Returning to Rachel - she has a problem.  The rich will leave. They probably will own businesses which are AI enabled. They are likely to remain rich.  

Manual trades jobs are likely to be safe for now until robotics catches up.  

So in the not too distant future we will have a few mega rich people.  Trades people who do work and then everyone else where the cost of human labour is less than AI.

Taxation demographics are likely to be hugely disrupted since the middle class with disappear and with it the bulk of tax revenues.  AI will ensure the rich dont pay too much tax and the poor will be incapable (or unwilling) to pay the levels of taxes needed to keep status-quo.     Government will need to fundamentally change it's spending habits. 

So gazing further into the future we are heading towards  a feudal-like system - a minority of AI land-owners and a large pool of serfs.  The serfs may have better education, healthcare and maybe even standard of living than today  but essentially the vast majority will be almost communist is lifestyle because there will be very little scope to be richer than others.  This does then raise the question who is going to pay for all of this? It also raises the question whether people will be happy with this new future.

History tells us that this kind of situation will lead to war, conflict and exploitation.  I guess I will still be alive to see what happens in this brave new world....