Obsolete or Irreplaceable? Garrison Lovely on Stopping the Race to Replace Human Labor

The AI industry’s pursuit of general-purpose labor-replacing technology, termed the "obsoleting project," threatens to concentrate wealth and disempower workers, necessitating a fundamental shift toward democratic oversight. Technical alignment alone cannot mitigate these risks; instead, society must address the broader economic and geopolitical alignment polycrisis. A "Third New Deal" is required to decouple individual material security from labor contributions, while industrial policy—such as prize-based systems for medical breakthroughs—should replace profit-driven innovation. Because frontier AI developers currently operate with elite impunity, internal unionization and robust whistleblower protections are essential to enforce safety standards and slow the race toward recursive self-improvement. Ultimately, the industry requires a societal immune response that treats the development of potentially existential-risk technology with the same regulatory and moral scrutiny as nuclear or biological weapons programs.