Furthermore, if you try to make your own decisions, you would be outcompeted by someone who has outsourced their brain. And, of course, since intelligence and labor would no longer be scarce resources that humans can use as leverage, gunning you down if you protest wouldn't really harm anyone in power.

People say that LLMs won't take us there. I think that's accurate, but there's a great deal of research going towards the next breakthroughs. How much are you willing to bet that all future attempts will fail?

We're trying very hard to build an ugly future.

If we are successful building an "ultra" human AI, it will require massive amounts of energy. That translates directly to "money". There will always be money unless someone finds a way to negate the second law of thermodynamics.

I highly doubt that. Humans might become obsolete, but money will almost certainly still be a thing.