the whole concept of "permanent underclass" is pretty obviously ridiculous. it relies on a tiny target combination of very aligned very tool-like AI plus continuation of current social structures. inequality will be something that gets massively magnified for a few years at most

now to be fair those few years will represent everyone's last shot at winning the lottery and having massively higher positional good ownership before concepts like positional goods dissolve away forever. but that's very much not *permanent underclass*, more "temporary hedonism"