> the capital was raised for AI requires that it produce as many reverse centaurs as possible, because the only way to recoup the farcical sums associated with AI production is to fire millions of workers and replace them

I'm not sure that this is the only way, just the way that selfish, sloppy, or impatient actors within business often work. If more wealth is created, more efficiencies found, more problems fixed, new jobs created, these would also bring the returns desired.