AI Is a Multiplier. That Is the Opportunity, and Also the Risk.

Published on June 10, 2026.

This article is not really about technology. It is about how technology could impact our lives.

In a previous post, I wrote that AI and vibe-coding tools are multipliers. The idea was simple: AI multiplies your current skill level. If you are a strong developer, tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and OpenAI Codex can dramatically increase your productivity. If you are strong in architecture and systems thinking, the improvement is even more noticeable.

But the opposite is also true. AI does not magically remove the need for judgment. It does not automatically create secure, scalable, maintainable software. The result still depends on the prompts, the guardrails, the architecture decisions, and the engineering direction given to the model.

In other words, AI changes the speed of development. It does not remove the need for skill.

I still believe that.

But recently I have been thinking about the same idea at a much larger scale. Not just at the developer/architect level, but at the society level.

Technology Does Not Start Everyone From the Same Place

Technology has always been an accelerator.

It helps people move faster, build faster, learn faster, and communicate faster. In general, I think this is a good thing. I am very optimistic about technology. I use AI every day. I build with it. I learn with it. I believe this is one of the biggest revolutions of our lifetime.

But accelerators have a side effect. They do not always reduce gaps. Sometimes they widen them.

And AI may widen them faster than any technology we have seen before.

The reason is simple: people do not start from the same position.

If you already have access to education, capital, good jobs, stable family support, strong networks, mentors, and time to experiment, AI can give you access to even more opportunities. You can build faster. You can learn faster. You can start a company faster. You can land better and more jobs. You can produce more with fewer resources.

But if you are already in a difficult position, AI does not automatically fix that.

If you are financially stressed, overworked, lacking access to strong education, or simply trying to survive, it is much harder to take advantage of the same tools.

I see this clearly in the United States, where I have lived for almost a decade.

This is a country with incredible opportunity. I truly believe that. But it is also a country where many people are financially struggling in a way that is hard to comprehend.

A lot of people are not just “saving less than they want.” They are actually broke. Negative net worth. Living paycheck to paycheck. One emergency away from serious financial trouble.

And we are not talking about a few million people. We are talking about tens of millions of people.

When I look at how fast AI is moving, I wonder what happens to those people when the next wave of productivity mostly benefits the people who are already positioned to use it.

So the same technology can help both groups, but the gap between them can still grow dramatically.

The Gap Can Grow Even When Everyone Improves

Here is a simple (maybe stupid simple!)  example.

Imagine two people.

One has a net worth of $10,000. The other has a net worth of $100,000.

The gap between them is $90,000.

Now imagine both of them find a way to 10x their position thanks to AI or a future revolutionary technology.

The first person now has $100,000. The second person now has $1,000,000.

Both improved. Both moved forward. Both are better off than before. No question about that.

But the gap is no longer $90,000. The gap is now $900,000!

Think about that: the gap went 10x as well!

Progress can be real, and inequality can still grow at the same time.

This is what worries me about AI. Not because AI is bad. Not because technology is bad. But because AI is such a powerful multiplier that it can multiply advantages at a speed we are not used to.

It can multiply skill, capital, access, and speed.

And if we are not careful, it can also multiply inequality.

This Is Not Only About Technology

To be clear, I am not saying technology is the root cause of inequality. It is not.

There are many other causes: the structure of the economy, cost of housing, cost of healthcare, education, debt, globalization, policy decisions, and many other factors.

You can also argue that part of this is a side effect of capitalism.

And to be clear again, I am very much pro-capitalism. I believe capitalism is the best system we have for innovation, ambition, and opportunity.

But every system has side effects. One side effect of capitalism is that wealth and opportunity can concentrate over time in the hands of the few.

That does not mean we should destroy the system. It means we need mechanisms to keep the system healthy.

Not to punish success. Not to kill ambition. But to prevent the gap from becoming so large that the system becomes unstable.

The United States has understood this before. Antitrust laws are a good example. They are not anti-capitalist. They are a way to protect capitalism from its own excesses.

When companies become too powerful and competition disappears, the system needs correction. It needs guardrails.

I think we need to apply the same kind of thinking to the AI era.

Not necessarily the same laws. Not necessarily the same tools. But the same principle: innovation needs a healthy system around it.

I Do Not Have the Answer

I am not writing this because I have a solution. I do not.

I do not have a policy framework. I am not pretending that this is easy. I am also not saying we should slow down AI or block innovation. That would be unrealistic, and probably a bad idea.

But I do think we need to be honest about what AI does.

AI is not just a productivity tool. It is an accelerator.

And accelerators are powerful. They can create incredible progress, but they can also make existing problems move faster.

That is where my concern is.

I am excited about AI. I am on the front line of people using it and benefiting from it. I believe it will create massive opportunities.

But in the back of my mind, I am also worried.

Because if AI is a multiplier, then it will not only multiply productivity. It will multiply the position people already have.

For some people, that will be life-changing in a positive way.

For others, the world may move even faster while they are still trying to catch up.

AI will create a lot of winners.

But what happens to everyone else?