A recent article in The Telegraph raises a profound question about the future of society. If artificial intelligence removes large numbers of white-collar jobs, what happens to the tax system that depends upon human employment, and what happens to the millions of people who no longer fit into the high-technology economy?

The issue is no longer theoretical. Technology firms, economists and even AI company executives are now openly discussing the possibility of mass redundancy amongst professional and office workers. Predictions range from the disappearance of entry-level jobs to severe reductions in software, administration, finance and design work.

The modern state is heavily dependent upon income tax and national insurance contributions from human labour. If AI systems increasingly perform the work once carried out by accountants, clerks, designers, legal assistants, administrators and software engineers, then the tax base itself begins to erode. This concern is now being openly acknowledged by OpenAI and others.

The political response so far has largely centred on ideas such as taxing AI companies, taxing data centres, introducing universal basic income, or retraining workers for an AI economy. But these responses still assume that the industrial-consumer system itself will continue largely unchanged. That assumption may prove false.

If AI concentrates wealth and productive power into a relatively small number of corporations and highly skilled technical elites, then a growing proportion of the population may simply become economically marginal to the formal system. The danger is not merely unemployment. It is the gradual separation of society into two economies.

The first economy would be the AI economy. Highly automated, urban, capital-intensive and dependent upon large concentrations of computing power, electricity, finance and advanced infrastructure. A relatively small number of people may prosper greatly within it.

The second economy may increasingly become a human economy. People excluded from the high-productivity AI system may drift toward forms of life where human labour still retains value because it meets immediate local needs rather than competing with global machine intelligence.

This is where rural localism may emerge, not as an ideological movement, but as a practical adaptation.

In such localities, people may no longer expect secure careers within national corporations. Instead, value may come from food production, repair work, woodland management, small-scale construction, care of older people, local transport, water systems, energy generation and simple manufacturing. Many of these activities are difficult to automate economically at small scale, especially in dispersed rural areas.

Paradoxically, those who do not benefit from AI may rediscover forms of resilience that highly automated urban populations lack.

A rural locality producing some of its own food, fuel and essential goods may prove more stable than a city population dependent upon welfare transfers funded by increasingly fragile corporate taxation. The ability to grow food, repair tools, manage woodland, harvest water and maintain simple infrastructure may become economically important once again.

There is also the question of housing. If large sections of office employment disappear, demand for expensive urban property may weaken significantly. Already there are warnings that AI-related job losses could destabilise housing markets. This may gradually push some people away from metropolitan centres toward cheaper rural areas where survival costs can be lowered through partial self-reliance.

However, rural localism will not be easy. Land prices remain extremely high. Planning systems still assume economic growth and commuter lifestyles. Rural infrastructure has been weakened over decades. Villages often lack workshops, smallholdings, local rail services, markets and affordable housing. Most importantly, modern populations have lost many practical skills.

Nevertheless, if AI continues replacing cognitive and administrative labour while energy and living costs continue rising, the logic of localism may strengthen naturally.

The future may therefore divide into two worlds existing side by side. One world dominated by AI, automation and concentrated wealth. The other based increasingly upon locality, practical labour, shared resources and reduced dependence upon the formal money economy.

In that sense, rural localism may become less a lifestyle choice and more a refuge for those left outside the AI system.

This piece was written by ChatGPT, prompted by Barry.