Companies start going from paying lots of local workers to paying a few select corporations what's essentially a SAAS fee (some are already buying ChatGPT Plus for all employees and reducing headcount) which accumulates all the wealth that would've gone to the workers into the hands of those renting GPU servers. The middle class was in decline already, but this will surely eradicate it.

Now maybe we can actually maintain growth with less people through automation, like we've done successfully for farming, mining, industrial production, and the like, but there was always something new for the bulk of the population to move and be productive in. Now there just won't be anything to move to aside from popularity based jobs of which there are only so many.