How Does a Society Transform When Corporations Cut the Cognitive Workforce?
How will the pieces fall in place as large industries radically reduce the workforce while requiring greater quantities of water and electricity than the resident human population?
A few years ago, an academic concept called psychological ownership was devised, which promoted the psychological illusion of shared ownership among the “workforce” to encourage workers to invest their creative capabilities in the enterprise for the benefit of shareholder profits. That’s out the door now, as the new shareholder objective is to radically reduce the size of the workforce for the same cause, greater profits for shareholders, which is the driving force behind the quagmire of investments in AI. The publicly traded company has always pitted the interests of the ownership class (the shareholders) against the working class (the workforce), and now it has reached its final stand.
The publicly traded company no longer requires many workers. How does this change the economic development policies of the centrally managed state and its public-private relationships? A few years ago, it was all about using the “workforce” as the trading pawn in the game, as the state traded x number of jobs at higher than average wages that deliver higher than average personal payroll tax revenue, in exchange for massive public subsidization of a corporation’s CapEx (new code for capital expenditure).
But today, the State of Maine is chartering its own corporations, as in The Maine Space Corporation, regardless of what the Constitution says in Article IV Part Third Section 13 & 14 prohibiting the state from doing just that.
Today, many of the corporations formerly courted by state economic development policies are slashing jobs en masse, and it’s happening suddenly across industries, taking many workers by surprise to be not only losing their jobs but the very foundation on which their working life is premised.
The first jobs targeted for elimination are the coders, fueled by AI capability to create code faster than humans and advancing at such an accelerated rate that some claim that AI creates code that is perfect, as in this article titled Something Big Is Happening by Matt Shumer • Feb 9, 2026.
That was followed by a series of articles like this one: About that Matt Shumer post that has nearly 50 million views. Something big is allegedly happening, by Gary Marcus, Feb 11, 2026, who argues that AI isn’t capable enough to replace human coders yet.
The former article is absorbable to the general public, while the latter article requires an understanding of the coding process. Many stories are being written about the large industrial replacement of human workers, often concluding with advice about what you (the developer) can do to ensure your place in the new class of the job- holding elite (See Shumer’s article).
First on the list is always “Sign up for the paid version,” which is good advice for those in the industries being targeted for job elimination by AI, but not necessary to the general user, since, from what I am reading, the next generation of AI is targeting jobs in specifically targeted industries qualified as cognitive or white collar jobs. AI has to show profitability to investors, so targeting large corporations with a way to save money by slashing jobs could do the trick, but at the same time, it deletes a large portion of the consumer market.
Then there is the take by Srinivas Rao, The One Question NOBODY Is Asking About AI and Jobs, which is that “the economic model that justified paying humans for knowledge work stops functioning entirely — and nobody is exempt.” He has a point, but didn’t ask the questions: what happens next, what replaces the structure of society, and what happens to all the workers who don’t become part of the job-retaining elite that Marcus and Schumer advise about? Rao’s perception is gloomier; ; those jobs that were prospectively retained will cease to exist as well.
There is also the contingency question: What happens if the AI funding bubble bursts before AI can establish a path to profitability? I favor this outcome as it staves off the end of life on earth as a result of water shortages and environmental pollution caused by AI’s massive need for water and electricity. Also, in that turn of events congnitive work might have a comeback.
Meanwhile, the entire agenda is floating on highly leveraged debt. The investors need the public to start purchasing the paid version of AI to show a path towards profitability, but AI’s market for that is workers in the industries whose jobs AI is eliminating. That’s a dwindling market.
So I asked Google AI,” If all employees in cognitive industries purchased the paid version of AI, how would it affect the gap between AI profitability and debt leverage?”
I received this answer:
If all individuals employed in cognitive industries purchased paid AI subscriptions, it would likely temporarily narrow the gap between AI profits and debt in the short term, but potentially accelerate the long-term debt-to-profit gap by accelerating the need for infrastructure expansion. While subscription revenue increases (high-margin income), it forces AI firms into a “winner-takes-all” race to increase capital expenditure (CapEx) to meet demand, which is currently funded by record, unsustainable debt levels. Referencing this article in Fortune magazine
It has been reported that there is interest in placing a hyper-scale data center in Wiscasset, Maine, which is situated between the Boothbay Peninsula and Bath.
So I asked Google AI, “What is the equivalent in residence use for an AI-focused, hyper-scale facility per water and electricity usage?
Hyperscale Facility (Typical): A standard facility with a 100 megawatt (MW) rating consumes enough electricity to support approximately 80,000 to 100,000 U.S. households.
Large-Scale AI Facilities: Some massive facilities under construction are expected to use up to 20 times that amount, equivalent to nearly 2 million homes.
Daily Consumption: Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day for cooling.
Residential Equivalent: This daily usage is comparable to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 residents.
The Boothbay Peninsula has about 6000 residents. Boothbay has been ignoring the warning issued by the State in the eighties that Adams Pond, its main water supply, is endangered by further development, especially since oligarch Paul Columbe showed up. His primary talent is for cultivating water-guzzling landscaping decor. The solution that has been floated but not acted upon is to hook up to the water supply in Bath by connecting to Wiscasset.
The water usage impact can be lessened by using liquid cooling and renewable energy, particularly in Indirect Water Reduction:
The Problem: Fossil fuel plants (coal/gas) use vast amounts of water for steam and cooling—up to 19,000 gallons per MWh for coal.
The Solution: Solar and wind power require virtually zero water for operation.
Residential Impact: Transitioning a 100MW facility to 100% renewables can save millions of gallons of water daily that would have been consumed off-site—saving more water than the direct on-site cooling ever could.
According to Google AI, Wiscasset, Maine, has access to both renewable energy and the potential for advanced, sustainable, and potentially “indirect” cooling technologies, particularly for industrial or data center redevelopment.
The AI data center directly competes with plans to build an affordable housing development in the same location, where Maine Yankee, a former atomic power plant, was once located. One does not hear much about the status of the atomic waste, so it remains a lingering question.
As I am writing, the news is breaking that Maine lawmakers voted Thursday to advance a bill that would stop the development of new data centers in the state for more than a year. The Portland Press Herald reports that “The bill, LD 307, would create a temporary limitation on data centers with electric loads of at least 20 megawatts by preventing the state, local governments and quasi-governmental agencies from issuing permits or other approvals until 90 days after the first session of the 133rd Legislature adjourns.”
However, when clicking on the link to the bill, it says only “Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows: 2 CONCEPT DRAFT 3 SUMMARY 4 This bill is a concept draft pursuant to Joint Rule 208. 5 This bill proposes to update certain laws regarding energy, utilities, and technology.”
According to Google AI:
Concept Drafts: Under this rule, a legislator may request a “concept draft,” which contains only an enacting clause and a summary rather than fully drafted language
So while none of what is being reported by the Maine media is in the text of the law, we shall have to assume that the Maine media knows what it is talking about.
If the bill is enacted, that could put a spanner in the works of the data center, and the affordable housing could move forward. By the time the moratorium is over, the AI funding bubble may have burst as well.
Meanwhile, much is being written about how to survive as one of the top elite who get to continue working in the field, but little is being written about how the rest of the workforce will fare.
With Boothbay facing its water shortage and the possibility of a water-intensive project still looming in Wiscasset, and the massive quantity of workers being released into society looking for a new lifestyle, many of them formerly employed creatively, can the confluence of events benefit a return of cottage industry life style as laid out in my application for the economic development council ?, The council does not currently exist - but if others apply, it creates a stronger call to action to bring one about.
Inspired by the housing plans that were popular during the Industrial Revolution, the centrally managed state of Maine recently enacted state-municipal ordinances that defy constitutional Home Rule, mandating that every municipality have “priority zones” where density cannot be regulated, intended to house the “workforce” and other members of the resident community, a transparent plan to make way for the state’s short-term rental indistry from which the state collects a lucrative 9% sakes tax. This plan reinvents Maine as a rigid class-structured grid society. However, one of the first overcrowded housing projects is located in Boothbay and has not received takers after 384 days on the market.
A cottage industry economic development zone offers a unique alternative to the state’s municipal ordinances and is attractive to the creative working classes. Why not try something different? We just have to nudge leadership into thinking differently for different times. If the independent making classes unite, we have a better chance of being heard.