The rapid automation of jobs and the sudden scalability of computational power could fundamentally reshape economies and geopolitics, yet most existing analyses focus on gradual changes rather than abrupt, large-scale disruptions. One way to address this gap could be to conduct a detailed scenario analysis exploring how a "fast take-off" economy—where 20% of jobs are quickly automated and computational power becomes cheap and abundant—might unfold.

Understanding the Fast-Take-Off Scenario

This scenario would examine how economies, governments, and global power structures adapt when automation accelerates beyond traditional projections. Key questions include:

How would GDP, wages, and investment patterns shift if productivity surged due to automation?
What energy and raw material demands would arise from scaling computational infrastructure?
Would democratic and autocratic governments respond differently to mass job displacement?

Unlike gradual automation studies, this approach would blend economic modeling with insights from political science, energy markets, and technology forecasting to capture nonlinear effects.

Who Would Benefit and Why?

Such an analysis could help:

Policymakers anticipate disruptions and design adaptive measures like retraining programs or universal basic income.
Investors identify emerging risks and opportunities in industries reshaped by automation.
Corporations navigate potential regulatory pushback or resource bottlenecks.

Stakeholder incentives vary: governments prioritize stability, corporations seek efficiency gains, and workers face pressure to adapt to new roles.

Execution and Existing Work

An initial step could involve compiling a white paper on one high-impact aspect, such as energy demands for computational scaling. This builds on but diverges from prior work:

For example, while The Age of Em explores a brain-emulation economy, this idea examines broader computational scalability. Similarly, The Second Machine Age focuses on gradual digital transformation, whereas this proposal emphasizes abrupt shifts.

By testing assumptions—like resource availability or political adaptability—against historical case studies and expert input, this analysis could offer a more nuanced view of how societies might handle sudden, sweeping technological change.