"permanent underclass" meaning in English

See permanent underclass in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: permanent underclasses [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} permanent underclass (plural permanent underclasses)
  1. (artificial intelligence) An inescapable subaltern class that emerges because artificial intelligence has automated away social mobility. Related terms: great bifurcation, have-nots, lumpenproletariat, technofeudalism
    Sense id: en-permanent_underclass-en-noun-7VqnsM0o Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Artificial intelligence

Inflected forms

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          "ref": "2025 October 8, Kyle Chayka, “Will A.I. Trap You in the 'Permanent Underclass'?”, in The New Yorker:",
          "text": "Lower than proletariat workers, the lumpenproletariat includes the indigent and the unemployable, those cast out of the workforce with no recourse, or those who can’t enter it in the first place, such as young workers in times of economic depression. According to some in Silicon Valley, this sorry category will soon encompass much of the human population, as a new lumpenproletariat—or, in modern online parlance, a “permanent underclass”—is created by the accelerating progress of artificial intelligence.",
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          "ref": "2025 October 27, “The new language of AI tech workers”, in NPR:",
          "text": "So there are all these tweets that I saw joking about the permanent underclass. And they usually went something along the lines of like, we only have five months to escape the permanent underclass. Like, you better work hard because you're going to get stuck in the permanent underclass",
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          "ref": "2026 March, Sam Kriss, “Child's Play: Tech's New Generation and the End of Thinking”, in Harper's Magazine:",
          "text": "People will endure a lot of indignity to avoid being left behind without VC money when the great bifurcation takes place. Nobody wants to be part of the permanent underclass.",
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          "text": "Lower than proletariat workers, the lumpenproletariat includes the indigent and the unemployable, those cast out of the workforce with no recourse, or those who can’t enter it in the first place, such as young workers in times of economic depression. According to some in Silicon Valley, this sorry category will soon encompass much of the human population, as a new lumpenproletariat—or, in modern online parlance, a “permanent underclass”—is created by the accelerating progress of artificial intelligence.",
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          "text": "So there are all these tweets that I saw joking about the permanent underclass. And they usually went something along the lines of like, we only have five months to escape the permanent underclass. Like, you better work hard because you're going to get stuck in the permanent underclass",
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Download raw JSONL data for permanent underclass meaning in English (2.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-07 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (d146717 and 59dc20b). 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.

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