Who pays for the welfare state when AI takes the jobs?
This is a Swedish opinion column from Computer Sweden's weekly newsletter, written by editor-in-chief Marcus Jerräng. It asks what happens to the welfare state if AI really does replace white-collar workers.
The column starts with Anthropic's stock market filing, submitted on Monday. The company describes a heavenly future in which AI bends history toward freedom, cures ancient diseases and ushers in "an age of miracles", while admitting that advanced AI could pose catastrophic or existential risks. It is expected to be valued at up to 2,000 billion kronor. The author argues the real driver is the market's logic. A Wall Street Journal article found a passage in the filing putting the value of all knowledge work worldwide at 400,000 billion kronor. Anthropic says AI can expand that value, but the Journal reads it as the total potential market for AI doing work instead of people. As evidence of the cost-cutting logic, the author notes that Barclays cited AI last week as a way to cut costs, with 5,000 people losing their jobs. Nvidia's Jensen Huang, asked what new jobs AI will create, pointed to health centres and spas.
The author says the political debate has barely addressed what happens if expectations are met. If companies redirect wage spending to AI services, value moves to large tech providers, mostly American, and to capital owners. Anthropic's own filing warns that AI could concentrate power and wealth in ways that destabilise society. The tax base would erode, and Sweden's tax system is not built for such a distribution of income, especially as profits can move abroad. The author asks which parts of society would stop being funded, how people would live, and who would pay for a citizen's wage. Research shows work matters to people beyond money, since most lottery winners keep working.
If AI fails to deliver, there is a different crisis. Apollo Asset Management said AI has so far produced zero economic return for large US companies outside tech, so valuations could be written down sharply. A stress test shows Norway's oil fund could lose 8,000 billion Norwegian kronor, nearly 40 percent of its value, in an AI crash. The author's rough estimate puts the Swedish AP funds' exposure to the "Big 10 AI" companies above 500 billion kronor, highest in AP7, which manages many Swedes' premium pensions.
The author expects the rally to continue for a while, but concludes that avoiding a very painful outcome will take a miracle.