AI is the greatest grievance machine ever

Unless properly handled, its transformation will produce rebellions on an unseen scale

    • AI angst could redraw the populist fault line between “them” and “us”, with “them” representing an ever-smaller group of people. 
    • AI angst could redraw the populist fault line between “them” and “us”, with “them” representing an ever-smaller group of people.  PHOTO: REUTERS
    Published Mon, Aug 10, 2026 · 07:00 AM

    ARTIFICIAL intelligence is on its way to becoming the greatest grievance-producing machine the world has seen.

    Economic revolutions have always been followed by powerful backlash on the part of the aggrieved.

    In Britain, Luddites smashed the power looms that took their jobs in the 1810s and in the US, populists raged against the giant companies that reordered their lives after the American Civil War.