Michael Max Bühler on AI will create a permanent underclass

Michael Max Bühler

Professor of Construction Management at HTWG Konstanz and co-author on AI’s impact on apprenticeship pathways.

The central risk is not that AI creates a ‘useless class’ in the strong Hararian sense, but that it institutionalises a permanent underclass: a cohort structurally excluded from the apprenticeship pathways through which professional judgement, employability and middle-class security are normally acquired.

Unverified (Sep 2, 2026)

Source:

Michael Max Bühler and Thorsten Jelinek, “The Apprenticeship Cliff: How Agentic AI Threatens to Create a Permanent Underclass — and Why Education Must Be Redesigned,” SSRN, September 2, 2026.