AI takes over, everyone has lost their job, now what?

I stumbled across a Reddit post that posed the question:

What is the point of AI taking everything over? Let’s just say hypothetically AI wins, congrats. Every job is replaced. Meta, Open AI and Amazon own everything... No one can work, therefore, no one has money to buy any of the horse shit Temu slop they prime on Amazon now. Won't everything just implode from there?

If everyone stops working, and has no money, doesn't consumerism stop too? ... No one can pay their $1000 car note anymore or their mortgage... What am I missing here? What is the grand idea with AI taking over and everyone is broke?

This will be the question that might stand the test of time - especially in my lifetime. But the OP states a fascinating point that often crosses my mind. Does this all end with a class divide as depicted in films like Snowpiercer, Soylent Green, Elysium, to name a few? Are we heading down that very same road?

I highly recommend perusing the Reddit thread. The responses to the OP are interesting in thier views. They offer some interesting perspectives, ranging from dystopian cynicism to cautious idealism.

My view:

The problem isn't the technology itself, but the economic framework we wrap around it. In an ideal world, automation would be the great liberator: machines shoulder the burden of labour, paving the way to rendering money obsolete and leaving humanity free to pursue passion over profit. That is what we should be striving for.

However, this very idealistic "Star Trek" view on humanity could be a stretch too far. A dose of reality tells us we are currently heading in the opposite direction. As we have seen historically, when machines replace workers, the efficiency gains turn into profits rather than enhancing the well-being of its workers. The technology offers us freedom, but whilst capitalism runs in the veins of those in power we risk forging our own chains with the very tools designed to break them.