AI isn’t only going to disrupt jobs, but could disrupt entire economic systems themselves.
This stark warning comes from Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI, the company behind the breakthrough Stable Diffusion image generation model. Known for his provocative takes on AI’s societal impact, Mostaque recently painted a grim picture of capitalism’s future in an era dominated by artificial intelligence. His assessment cuts to the heart of a question that extends far beyond employment concerns: can human-driven economic competition survive when machines can outthink, outwork, and outmaneuver us at every turn?
“Capitalism as it is, is going to be great for AI,” Mostaque explains. “But how are we going to compete? How do you compete with entities that are strictly smarter than you? And this is without getting to AGI or ASI or anything like that, that learn perfectly from their mistakes. Never sleep. You can’t tell it’s an AI on the other side.”
The Stability AI chief argues that artificial intelligence systems possess fundamental advantages that make human competition increasingly futile. These systems don’t just work around the clock—they learn from every interaction, continuously improving without the biological limitations that constrain human entrepreneurs and businesses.
Mostaque illustrates his point with a concrete example: “I don’t see how, again, they’ll figure out the micro to the macro better than we can allocate capital. Let’s take a practical example about launching a protein bar. How long did that process take and how long do you think it’s going to take in a couple of years to do it end to end—calling all the suppliers, arranging all the contracts, et cetera?”
His answer is sobering: “It took years. Whereas you’ll be able to spin up a million agents hitting the exact niche, doing AB testing, doing all the supply contracts and other things remotely, probably within months. And that’s only because of the human bits stopping it. All the thinking that you had to do there, AI will probably do in less than a day.”
This isn’t hyperbole, according to Mostaque. The CEO concludes with a prediction that strikes at capitalism’s core premise: “Again, I think capitalism doesn’t survive for humans and the AI will accumulate more and more capital because there’s no way we can outcompete them.”
The implications of Mostaque’s vision extend far beyond individual businesses or sectors. If AI systems can indeed orchestrate complex business operations—from market research and supplier negotiations to logistics and customer acquisition—at superhuman speed and scale, the fundamental dynamics of economic competition shift dramatically. We’re already witnessing early versions of this transformation: algorithmic trading dominates financial markets, AI-powered logistics optimize global supply chains, and machine learning systems increasingly handle customer service, content creation, and even strategic planning.
Recent developments support Mostaque’s thesis. OpenAI’s GPT models have demonstrated capabilities in complex reasoning and task completion, while companies like Anthropic and Google are developing AI agents designed to handle multi-step business processes autonomously. Meanwhile, the rapid advancement of AI-powered automation tools suggests we may be closer to Mostaque’s “million agents” scenario than many realize. The question isn’t whether AI will reshape capitalism—it’s whether humans will have any meaningful role in the economy that emerges.