在未来几年内，人工智能（AI）将迅速取代全球大量高薪知识分子，预计在三到四年内将替代美国广泛知识经济中15%的工作岗位。由于大语言模型的性能呈指数级提升（每六个月翻一番），失业的专业人士将无法及时通过学习新技能来与之竞争。这导致流向退休投资账户的资金将转为净流出，从而被迫大量赎回标普500指数等被动投资基金。由于被动投资存在乘数效应，流入或流出1美元对大公司股票的价格波动影响可放大至100倍。因此，支撑该指数上涨的AI科技巨头（如英伟达、微软和亚马逊）将因这些机械性的资金撤出而遭受最严重的股价打击。

标普500指数已演变成一个前十大公司占比前所未有的集中度波动陷阱。当专业阶层开始变卖资产以支付房贷时，被迫抛售的被动基金将引发股市的骤然剧烈崩盘。这种资产价值的大幅缩水，加上总需求的大幅下滑，足以引爆一场规模不亚于2007至2009年全球金融危机的全新危机，而私人信贷和保险公司资产负债表中的问题将进一步恶化这一局面。尽管历史经验为决策者提供了应对流动性枯竭的成熟工具，但政府在稳定金融市场之余，将极难应对高度生产力劳动力被大规模替代所带来的社会结构重组。

从深层次来看，这场AI革命将产生一个巨大的讽刺：被替代的劳动者将不再有收入来参与和消费革命的成果。当经济增长与就业彻底脱节，现有的社会契约将被终结，而现行的政治结构对此毫无准备。随着大宗商品和资产价格的全球性通缩压力上升，人类社会将不仅面临一场惊人的股市回调，更将迎来整个社会治理体系与经济分配机制的彻底颠覆。

Within a few years, artificial intelligence will displace a significant portion of highly paid knowledge workers, with models doubling in power every six months. This rapid pace means that within three to four years, AI is expected to replace 15% of jobs in America’s broader knowledge economy, outstripping workers' capacity to adapt. Consequently, flows into retirement investment accounts will turn net-negative as unemployed professionals withdraw funds. Because passive investing has created highly sensitive equity markets, research by Simplify Asset Management suggests that a net outflow of one dollar can have a multiplier effect on stock prices as high as 100 for the largest firms.

This dynamic poses an acute threat to the S&P 500, which has become a concentrated volatility trap where the top ten companies represent an unprecedented share of market value. As displaced workers redeem passive index trackers to cover mortgages, the mechanical selling will hit the highly valued AI mega-caps like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon the hardest. The resulting collapse in equity prices, combined with declining aggregate demand, will trigger a financial crisis on the scale of the 2007-09 global crisis, if not larger. While central banks can use established playbooks to pump liquidity, governments will struggle to manage the societal reordering caused by the mass displacement of productive labor.

Ultimately, the AI revolution presents a fundamental irony: it will decouple economic growth from employment, leaving many consumers without the income to buy the very products driving the economy. As deflationary pressures mount and global liquidity dries up, the existing social contract will break down. Current political and policy frameworks are deeply unprepared for a world where technology renders a vast swathe of the professional class permanently obsolete, signaling that the upcoming crisis will stretch far beyond financial markets into the core of democratic governance.

Source: If you thought the global financial crisis was bad…

Subtitle: When the crash comes, stabilising markets will be easy compared with reordering society for AI, writes short-seller Carson Block

Dateline: Jul 02, 2026 06:23 AM