Gradual disempowerment summary

Abstract

Summary of the ``gradual disempowerment’’ thesis: even without a single catastrophic misalignment event, the incremental AI automation of economic production, cultural output, and governance could quietly strip humans of the leverage that today gives their preferences weight in societal decision-making. The authors argue that once economic participation, cultural influence, and democratic voice cease to require human input, the feedback loops that keep institutions responsive to human interests may erode, producing a dystopian equilibrium in which humans are passive consumers within an AI-managed world. – AI-generated abstract.