[bodiekane]

> Why would AI be any different?

The speed, the scale and the class of people impacted are all novel.

AI will likely cause massive displacement in the span of a few years which prior advancements had spread out over decades. In 1850 the US was 30% urban, in 1950 it was 64% and today it's 82%. Spreading the change out over 150 years doesn't yield the same sort of shock to the system that rapid changes do, and correspondingly doesn't result in the same sort of political force to change society.

It might be better to look not at "new technologies" but instead what happens after "sudden mass unemployment" like the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, which in turn led to unprecedented new policies like the New Deal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal).

Also relevant - the people about to be unemployed aren't the already disenfranchised lower classes. I won't be surprised if there's more sympathy from the people in power when the unemployed are their friends, family and former classmates.