The Automaton Economy (Part 1): The Inevitable Obsolescence of Capitalism

This article launches a new series, The Automaton Economy, which confronts the most critical question of our time: What happens when AI makes mass human labor obsolete? We begin by diagnosing the terminal illness of our current economic system. I argue that AI automation creates a fatal paradox of production without consumption, leading to a systemic death spiral. This post deconstructs the inadequacy of patchwork solutions like Universal Basic Income (UBI) and establishes the urgent need to architect a new socio-economic model built for an age of intelligent machines.