See useless class on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "Yuval Noah Harari",
"in": "2016",
"nat": "Israeli",
"nobycat": "1",
"occ": "intellectual",
"occ2": "historian"
},
"expansion": "Coined by Israeli intellectual and historian Yuval Noah Harari in 2016",
"name": "coin"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Coined by Israeli intellectual and historian Yuval Noah Harari in 2016.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "useless classes",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "useless class (plural useless classes)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Sociology",
"orig": "en:Sociology",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
534,
547
]
],
"ref": "2017 February 24, Yuval Noah Harari, “The rise of the useless class”, in TED, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2022:",
"text": "In the 19th century the Industrial Revolution created a huge urban proletariat, and socialism spread because no other creed managed to answer the unprecedented needs, hopes and fears of this new working class. Liberalism eventually defeated socialism only by adopting the best parts of the socialist program. In the 21st century we might witness the creation of a massive new unworking class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society. This “useless class” will not merely be unemployed — it will be unemployable.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
328,
341
]
],
"ref": "2025 February 11, Ewan Morrison, “Surviving Within Artificial Intelligence's Useless Class”, in Psychology Today, archived from the original on 15 Jul 2025:",
"text": "We should be preparing ourselves not just for AI and automation to wipe out unprecedented numbers of jobs, but for the technical solutions posed by the AI leaders to also pose a threat to human mental health. We need to start preparing now as a society, rather than hoping that others and not ourselves will be included in “the useless class.”",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A segment of the population that can no longer contribute to society due to artificial intelligence having supplanted the roles they were previously able to fulfill."
],
"id": "en-useless_class-en-noun-i0ARYSLf",
"links": [
[
"futurology",
"futurology"
],
[
"sociology",
"sociology"
],
[
"segment",
"segment"
],
[
"population",
"population"
],
[
"contribute",
"contribute"
],
[
"society",
"society"
],
[
"artificial intelligence",
"artificial intelligence"
],
[
"supplant",
"supplant"
],
[
"role",
"role"
],
[
"previously",
"previously"
],
[
"able",
"able"
],
[
"fulfill",
"fulfill"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(futurology, sociology) A segment of the population that can no longer contribute to society due to artificial intelligence having supplanted the roles they were previously able to fulfill."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "have-nots"
},
{
"word": "lumpenproletariat"
},
{
"word": "permanent underclass"
},
{
"word": "technofeudalism"
},
{
"word": "useless eater"
},
{
"word": "you will own nothing and be happy"
}
],
"topics": [
"human-sciences",
"sciences",
"social-science",
"sociology"
]
}
],
"word": "useless class"
}
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "Yuval Noah Harari",
"in": "2016",
"nat": "Israeli",
"nobycat": "1",
"occ": "intellectual",
"occ2": "historian"
},
"expansion": "Coined by Israeli intellectual and historian Yuval Noah Harari in 2016",
"name": "coin"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Coined by Israeli intellectual and historian Yuval Noah Harari in 2016.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "useless classes",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "useless class (plural useless classes)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "have-nots"
},
{
"word": "lumpenproletariat"
},
{
"word": "permanent underclass"
},
{
"word": "technofeudalism"
},
{
"word": "useless eater"
},
{
"word": "you will own nothing and be happy"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English coinages",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with quotations",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"en:Sociology"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
534,
547
]
],
"ref": "2017 February 24, Yuval Noah Harari, “The rise of the useless class”, in TED, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2022:",
"text": "In the 19th century the Industrial Revolution created a huge urban proletariat, and socialism spread because no other creed managed to answer the unprecedented needs, hopes and fears of this new working class. Liberalism eventually defeated socialism only by adopting the best parts of the socialist program. In the 21st century we might witness the creation of a massive new unworking class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society. This “useless class” will not merely be unemployed — it will be unemployable.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
328,
341
]
],
"ref": "2025 February 11, Ewan Morrison, “Surviving Within Artificial Intelligence's Useless Class”, in Psychology Today, archived from the original on 15 Jul 2025:",
"text": "We should be preparing ourselves not just for AI and automation to wipe out unprecedented numbers of jobs, but for the technical solutions posed by the AI leaders to also pose a threat to human mental health. We need to start preparing now as a society, rather than hoping that others and not ourselves will be included in “the useless class.”",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A segment of the population that can no longer contribute to society due to artificial intelligence having supplanted the roles they were previously able to fulfill."
],
"links": [
[
"futurology",
"futurology"
],
[
"sociology",
"sociology"
],
[
"segment",
"segment"
],
[
"population",
"population"
],
[
"contribute",
"contribute"
],
[
"society",
"society"
],
[
"artificial intelligence",
"artificial intelligence"
],
[
"supplant",
"supplant"
],
[
"role",
"role"
],
[
"previously",
"previously"
],
[
"able",
"able"
],
[
"fulfill",
"fulfill"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(futurology, sociology) A segment of the population that can no longer contribute to society due to artificial intelligence having supplanted the roles they were previously able to fulfill."
],
"topics": [
"human-sciences",
"sciences",
"social-science",
"sociology"
]
}
],
"word": "useless class"
}
Download raw JSONL data for useless class meaning in All languages combined (3.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-02 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-07-06 using wiktextract (d9fa233 and 9e92f4b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.