Is This a Social Call or Risk Management for Capital?

2 min read

1 hour ago

Listen

In Davos, Larry Fink, CEO and Chairman of BlackRock and co-chair of the World Economic Forum, warned that artificial intelligence could deepen inequality. He posed a critical question: “If AI does to white-collar workers what globalization did to blue-collar workers, what will become of everyone else? If we leave this transformation unchecked, the revolt will come not from the blue-collar worker but from the white-collar worker — and that is far more dangerous.”

At first glance, this statement seems like a societal warning. But considering the venue, the audience, and the language used, it feels like he is not addressing the streets but rather the elites within the Davos halls. Fink might be warning not society itself, but capital owners about an emerging risk.

This time, the threat doesn’t come from the anger of blue-collar workers but from the disaffection of white-collar workers. Those who know the system’s language and understand it are rapidly losing their values. A white-collar declaration of “This system is not fair” doesn’t signify mere dissatisfaction — it directly signifies a crisis of legitimacy.

Fink’s approach appears to be framing this crisis in advance. He doesn’t deny the problem; in fact, he voices it loudly. But his proposed solution confines the answer not outside the system but within it — a form of containment rather than emancipation.

However, a key element missing from his talk is this: artificial intelligence is not just a software revolution, it’s an energy and infrastructure revolution. Electricity generation, transmission lines, data centers, and carbon costs are largely funded by societal resources. Yet the resulting value accrues mainly to private corporate balance sheets. The risk may be collective, but the returns are private.

So the real question isn’t “Does AI create inequality?” The real question is: Will society only pay the bill, or will it also share in the value created? Larry Fink’s remarks at Davos could be read as an early warning aimed at preventing this question from spiraling out of control.

Perhaps that is the essence: in the age of artificial intelligence, capital may be speaking first for its own survival — to prevent white-collar workers from revolting — rather than for society at large.