Few people would argue that the job of “Amazon warehouse worker” is anything other than a tool for Jeff Bezos to become richer and more powerful. The person who has that job, from when they clock in to when they clock out, is functionally equivalent to a horse.
Amazon software engineers are the same, they just make more money today.
Comparing people and horses in terms of jobs they can do, and their ability to adapt to new tasks is so unbelievably dumb it's staggering it even needs to be pointed out. This is why these arguments for automation imminently putting vast swathes of people permanently out of work has never come true, in the hundreds of years it's been predicted.
Meanwhile developed world economies are close to full employment and have many more vacant positions than unemployed people. We have a skills problem, not an unemployment problem.
CGP Grey argued (paraphrased) “if X happens in the future, Y will be like Z”, you are arguing that Y will never be like Z in the future because Y is not currently like Z.
How long are we supposed to wait for this prediction to come true, and how many times does this have to be disproved across how many economies?
Horses represent the importance of muscle power in the economy, which was made vanishing small by mechanisation; AGI would do the same for intellectual labour.
The difference between this and previous tech improvements is that this one replaces human thought, not manual labor. That’s fundamentally different than everything that’s come before.
If they want to get money and work at a specific company, don't claim they are slaves. Amazon makes an offer: hey, if you work here you get X amount, and they accept.
You can claim an employee is a tool for the company, but you can also claim a company is a money generator for an employee. It's a work-money trade between 2 parties. Don't claim it's slavery.
> Work for another company -> compete for decreasing number of jobs with increasing number of candidates.
> start their own business -> compete with everyone that is smarter than you and/or had a better starting position.
> go live in the forest and live off the land -> this is called poverty.
Leave your job -> Lose health insurance and anything you paid towards your deductible
But I think there might be a way out:
Spend as little as possible and use all your extra cash to buy stocks. Not meme stocks of course but either an index fund or if you really trust your skill go ahead and pick stocks. If there is a wealth transfer you will be at least partially on the receiving end.