Yapay Zekâ Çağında Yeni Sınıf Çizgisi
Industrial society was shaped by a durable divide between those who owned productive capital and those who sold their labor. Artificial intelligence does not erase that structure. It may be adding another layer of inequality: the distinction between people who can direct technological systems and those whose work, choices, and economic value are increasingly shaped by systems designed by others. The emerging divide is not simply between people who use AI and those who do not. Access to AI tools is becoming widespread and inexpensive. What remains far more unevenly distributed is the ability to modify those systems, connect them to proprietary data, redesign workflows around them, evaluate their outputs, challenge automated decisions, and capture the productivity gains they generate. Research also complicates the idea that AI will inevitably widen skill gaps. In some workplaces, generative AI has produced larger productivity gains for less experienced workers, suggesting that technology can diffuse expertise rather than merely concentrate it. The outcome therefore depends heavily on how institutions deploy it. The deeper question concerns control. Who decides what an algorithm optimizes? Who owns the data and infrastructure? Who can override an automated decision? And when AI makes a worker significantly more productive, who receives the additional economic value? The traditional conflict between capital and labor is therefore unlikely to disappear. Instead, AI may introduce a new axis of stratification based on technological agency. If control over infrastructure, data, decision-making, and productivity gains becomes persistently concentrated in the same hands, technological capability may evolve from a professional advantage into a durable source of social and economic power.