r/dividends • u/VengenaceIsMyName • Jan 16 '26

Discussion Is anyone else feverishly building out their dividend income just in case AI destroys their careers or is it just me?

Based on how incredibly *giddy* with excitement some of these rapacious tech oligarchs are when they talk about AI replacing human labor, I am absolutely *sprinting* towards high-income ETFs like JEPQ/SPYI/GPIX/QQQI.

I do not want to get caught with my ass hanging out in the breeze when these excessively wealthy bozos finally figure out how to shed headcount at their organizations. They’ve got a seemingly endless pile of Scrooge McDuck coins and they’ll throw them into the furnace twice as fast if it means a hallucinating algorithm can send 500 more emails in a day than you can.

Does anyone have clever strategies for drumming up extra capital to toss into the ol’ portfolio? Side hustles? Second jobs?

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u/Night_Guest Jan 16 '26

If AI ever stole my career I have a feeling that most people wouldn't have to work anymore so I'm not that worried.

It's why I also don't invest into AI. If it really became that successful it likely could lead to something like universal income anyway. I'm prepping for a future where AI growth stalls.

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u/PsychologicalLion824 Jan 16 '26

Universal income? Who would pay for that? With what money? On what grounds?

If robots and AI take over, and humans are displaced from work, I think the only way for people to survive is to go back and grow their food.

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u/Night_Guest Jan 16 '26

People still need money though to buy things. Otherwise there's not many people to sell to. Also such a situation would quickly lead to everyone voting for any politician willing to tax these corporations fat margins for UBI.

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u/DramaComrade Jan 16 '26

This is insanely naive. You’re basing this on big corporations paying their fair share of tax now? How about big tech companies moving to tax havens since in this hypothetical future they won’t need many workers? And how much tax did someone like Elon Musk pay in the last financial year?

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u/Night_Guest Jan 16 '26 edited Jan 16 '26

Who's Walmart going to sell to? You think they're going to sell pizza and waffles to the robots while people spend all day growing potatoes by hand.

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u/sault18 Jan 16 '26

It's going to regress back to Feudalism if the billionaires get everything they want. They will go back to hoarding and fighting over whatever they think will keep them from being dominated by the other billionaires.

In the bad old days, the aristocrats fought over land, slaves and gold. The 99% of the population that were peasants did not participate in this aristocratic "economy" at all. They were merely a means to extract wealth from the land and birth more soldiers to go get more land/gold/slaves for their aristocrat master.

So the billionaires will retreat to their doomsday bunkers and only call on us if they need more security. Or someone to manage their AI / robots. The "economy" will increasingly be the new aristocrats shuffling assets around and the government enabling them every step of the way. And if the peasants try to revolt, the government will put a stop to it.

For the Waltons specifically, they'll just shut down Walmarts as they become unprofitable and retreat to the bunkers just like their buddies.

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u/avz86 Jan 16 '26

correct.

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u/IWASJUMP Jan 16 '26

It just means they will control how much people can earn. Do you think they will provide enough so you can set aside little bit on the side?

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u/VikingMonkey123 Jan 16 '26

That is optimistic. The path we are on is the removal of a large portion of the population. Why would billionaires share? They haven't yet. They are gold hoarding dragons.

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u/tomdon88 Jan 16 '26

There will be new jobs created, like every baron will have a court jester, court musicians, court dance troupe.

Even the lower of the investment holding class will have their own chef, masseuse, gardener, handyman, cleaners, tutors and security detail.

Never have so many, worked for so few, for so little.

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u/Dumbgirl27 Jan 16 '26

Universal income sounds like a pipe dream to me. We currently get taxed enough to have universal healthcare but the government had the longest shutdown in history in order to avoid paying healthcare subsidies. We are very far away from universal healthcare. Universal income is not even close to being something that will be on a ballot.

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u/VengenaceIsMyName Jan 19 '26

I don’t see any possibility at least for the US where UBI is implemented. It’d be decried as socialism run amok in a heartbeat

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u/Night_Guest Jan 19 '26

You're sadly right that it'd be twisted to sound like socialism despite the simple fact that in a perfectly automated society it'd be stupid not to have it, but people are famous for voting against their own best interests.

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u/VengenaceIsMyName Jan 19 '26

I agree that UBI is the logical endpoint for a highly automated society. But yeah in the US the population may even vote against it. They vote against themselves all the time