>> The masses don't tend to act to project their interests until it's too late.

> The masses are already showing signs of restlessness

IMHO, "restlessness" doesn't mean anything. It would be expected in a AI-driven usurpation of labor. People have already been restless for decades due to de-industrialization, and that mainly got us Trump and an opioids, but the factories are still gone.

The key to fucking over the masses is making sure the "restlessness" doesn't get too strong, and doesn't have a clear (and correct!) villain identified, and maintaining a sense of inevitability.

> I don't think the masses will wait all that long.

IMHO, they probably will. Any individual or small group who takes action will be pilloried as wackos and thrown in jail. A larger movement will be (rightly) characterized as an insurrection and dealt with harshly.

People are complacent, and often don't realize they're really losing something until it's already slipped from their fingers.

I also think the Western world lacks the ideological tools to stop technologies like this. They'd basically have to start looking at technology like Amish do: rejecting technology that would undermine their social structure, rather than expecting the social structure to adapt to the technology.