How Creators Can Profit From The Artificial Economy
Why Tech Billionaires Must Save Us From Themselves
A few nights ago, I rewatched WALL-E with my kids.
You know the one: humanity has left the Earth in ruins covered in junk, and is now floating through space on techno deckchairs in a huge spaceship.
Obese and screen-bound, they sip neon smoothies through straws, glued to dopamine inducing ads and virtual fodder - while robots do all the work.
It’s meant to be a cautionary tale.
But the next day, watching my youngest sip a milkshake while scrolling YouTube Shorts, I had a disturbing thought:
We’re already halfway there.
The Broken Conveyor Belt
Picture a factory where a giant conveyor belt brings raw materials in at one end and churns out shiny gadgets at the other.
Workers used to line the belt, assembling everything.
Now, the factory owners have replaced almost everyone with machines.
The belt moves faster than ever. But there's a catch.
No one’s left with a salary to buy the gadgets.
That’s the problem with unchecked AI automation. If you eliminate the workers, you eliminate the customers. The system devours itself.
This isn’t a sci-fi script. It’s basic economics.
No workers means no wages.
No wages means no spending.
No spending means no profit.
Even the factory owners lose in that game.
AI Alone Can’t Build the Future
We need an Artificial Economy to match our Artificial Intelligence.
And like it or not, the burden to build it lies with those reaping the most from AI: the tech elite.
That doesn’t mean some dystopian universal basic income where we’re paid to stay passive. That’s WALL-E territory.
It means designing a new economy where in our context - creators, solopreneurs, educators, and community builders are paid to bring humanity into the machine age.
It means empowering people—not replacing them.
Because the real power of AI isn’t in how much it can automate. It’s in how far it can amplify what makes us human—our voice, our vision, our value.
If you can write with insight, speak with story, teach with purpose, or sell with trust—you’re not obsolete.
You’re irreplaceable.
We don’t need to fear AI taking our jobs.
We need to build jobs that AI can serve.
Otherwise the tech owners won't have anybody to buy their gadgets.
The Dawn of Authentic AI-Augmented Voices
This is why I believe the future for creators is brighter than ever—if we lean into our authentic, AI-augmented voices.
Forget the doom mongers. Forget the "AI will kill creativity" crowd.
AI doesn’t destroy originality. It destroys mediocrity.
We’ve already lived through two and a half decades of soulless SEO content written by humans to chase rankings.
And Google penalised most of that because it offered zero value for the reader.
The good stuff though - written with thought behind it - was kept in the SERPS and made a lot of people a lot of money (including me).
Now everyone's using LLM's, Google won’t penalise AI content per se. It will still just penalise bad content.
And as for readers on social media platforms and online communities, well they've never connected with shallow, boiler plate content anyway - whether AI written or not.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...
And that’s the opportunity.
Because if you’ve got something to say—
If you’ve lived a story worth sharing—
If you’re willing to write, teach, or lead with truth—
AI becomes your most powerful tool.
Not to replace your voice, but to refine it.
Not to erase your job, but to elevate it.
We are not floating chair-people.
We are builders, thinkers, and storytellers.
Let’s write our place in this artificial economy.
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