{"id":97241,"date":"2026-05-19T20:04:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=97241"},"modified":"2026-05-19T20:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:05:20","slug":"opinion-ai-to-disrupt-real-estate-and-erase-the-middle-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/opinion-ai-to-disrupt-real-estate-and-erase-the-middle-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: AI to Disrupt Real Estate and Erase the Middle Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A crypto blogger known as The Smart Ape has published a detailed analysis of the economic consequences of widespread AI automation. The starting point was a forecast by Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman, who stated to the Financial Times back in February that AI will automate most office professions within 12\u201318 months.<\/p>\n<p>According to The Smart Ape, the mass displacement of &#8220;white-collar&#8221; workers could trigger a cascading economic collapse comparable in scale to the 2008 crisis.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"zxx\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HGKUGPaXaS\">https:\/\/t.co\/HGKUGPaXaS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Smart Ape \ud83d\udd25 (@the_smart_ape) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/the_smart_ape\/status\/2056673988869235142?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 19, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Office Workers as the Foundation of the Credit System<\/h2>\n<p>The blogger argues that banks lend not to individuals, but to &#8220;income trajectories.&#8221; A lawyer earning $200,000, a consultant with $180,000, an engineer with $160,000 \u2014 for banks, these are borrowers of the highest reliability. If AI replaces their jobs, an entire class that underpins the credit system will vanish.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-a2576999c077d201-4811036021280955.webp\" alt=\"image\" class=\"wp-image-280198\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/the_smart_ape\/status\/2056673988869235142\">The Smart Ape<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The author describes a chain of consequences: job loss \u2014 depletion of savings \u2014 selling stocks to pay off mortgages. If millions of former high-paid professionals start doing this simultaneously, the stock market will slump, and within 6\u201312 months, mass mortgage defaults will begin.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Housing Market More Vulnerable Than in 2008<\/h2>\n<p>The Smart Ape points out a key difference from the 2008 crisis: then, the blow was to the periphery of the credit system \u2014 subprime borrowers. Now, the most reliable categories are at risk.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>&#8220;U.S. mortgage debt has risen to $12.5 trillion from $10.5 trillion in 2008 \u2014 only a 20% nominal increase, although housing prices have nearly tripled in that time. The main capital is concentrated among boomers, while young homeowners remain heavily indebted.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The &#8216;lock-in&#8217; effect creates additional pressure: millions of Americans took out mortgages at 3% during the pandemic and are unwilling to sell homes at current rates of around 7%. This reduces market liquidity. If forced sales begin, prices may fall faster than fundamentally justified,&#8221; claims The Smart Ape.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Fed&#8217;s Dilemma and Redistribution Failure<\/h2>\n<p>The author believes that the <span data-descr=\"Federal Reserve System of the USA\" class=\"old_tooltip\">Fed<\/span> has no good options. Two scenarios are possible:<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Turn on the printing press again and save banks, as during the 2008 crisis. However, the consequences of the recent inflation spike are still felt: prices for food, rent, and fuel remain high, and global central banks are increasingly betting on gold instead of the dollar.<\/li>\n<li>Do not intervene and let banks handle defaults on their own. But this risks a repeat of September 2008, when the financial system began to rapidly lose stability.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The blogger emphasizes that since the 1980s, productivity growth has not led to wage increases \u2014 the benefits were captured by capital. AI, he says, launches the same dynamic &#8220;without brakes.&#8221; Value will concentrate among a few companies \u2014 NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, OpenAI \u2014 and a thin layer of engineers around them.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-fdb778d7cc12396a-4811111026943424.webp\" alt=\"image\" class=\"wp-image-280199\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/the_smart_ape\/status\/2056673988869235142\">The Smart Ape<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why UBI Won&#8217;t Save Us<\/h2>\n<p>The most popular response \u2014 universal basic income (UBI) \u2014 is deemed unrealistic by the author. A modest $1,000 per month for adult Americans would cost the budget $3\u20134 trillion annually \u2014 about two-thirds of all tax revenues. The program would have to be funded by taxing the very companies with &#8220;the best lobbyists and the most aggressive offshore schemes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to The Smart Ape, the real political program will boil down to unemployment insurance and retraining programs for professions that will also disappear.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">K-shaped Finale<\/h2>\n<p>The outcome, according to the author, will be a K-shaped economy. At the top \u2014 capital owners and AI engineers, at the bottom \u2014 former &#8220;white-collar&#8221; workers who join the ranks of manual laborers and the gig economy. The middle class, as previously understood, will no longer exist.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>&#8220;Suleyman may be wrong about the 18 months. Even if he missed by five years, the direction is set. Those who move forward are those who create the AI that replaces the rest. Learn the tools, get close to those who create them, understand how it works. Waiting will not save you,&#8221; concludes The Smart Ape.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Earlier, Gartner <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/gartner-predicts-ai-spending-to-reach-2-59-trillion\">forecasted<\/a> AI spending to grow to $2.59 trillion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A crypto blogger known as The Smart Ape has published a detailed analysis of the economic consequences of widespread AI automation. The starting point was a forecast by Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman, who stated to the Financial Times back in February that AI will automate most office professions within 12\u201318 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"AI to automate office jobs, disrupt economy, says blogger.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[438,1224,1138],"class_list":["post-97241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-macroeconomics","tag-opinions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"7","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"AI to automate office jobs, disrupt economy, says blogger.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97243,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97241\/revisions\/97243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}