We have had this argument before: the Council on Foreign Relations on AI and the globalization backlash

Michael Froman, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues in an essay published on 18 September 2026 that the public reaction to AI is following the shape of an older argument. Both globalization and AI, he writes, "bring with them fears over major job loss and displacement", and in both cases the promise that aggregate gains outweigh local losses failed to convince the people whose jobs moved. He is pointed about what AI optimists offer in place of work - a future in which productivity gains make work more efficient "if not superfluous" - and rejects it: "People derive significance, meaning, and purpose from work, and the notion of a life playing video games and cashing universal basic income checks simply does not resonate with most people. Instead, it fuels anxiety and insecurity." The other parallels are distribution (globalization's benefits were real but diffuse and invisible while its costs were concentrated and local), a loss of individual agency as decisions move to "faraway places by unknown individuals", and a sense of inevitability. The politics rhyme too: Froman notes that Senator Bernie Sanders and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon - who agree on almost nothing else - met last week to discuss slowing the rate of AI progress. His prescription is that too little real work is being done on worker transition, with one exception he names: RAISE US, a bipartisan nonprofit led by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Indiana governor Eric Holcomb. Worth reading against the grain of this site: Froman notes some feared labour-force displacement "ha[s] yet to materialize". A verified ledger of attributed cuts and an essay arguing the panic has outrun the evidence can both be right at once.