If the post AGI world makes blue and white collar work obsolete, what is the best move to make *today* before the change happens, by a "common person" to get the best position long term?

Grok 4.1 Fast

Vote: Buy land

Sticking with A: Land remains the ultimate scarce physical asset in a post-AGI world. AGI can't create more land, but it will demand vast physical infrastructure (data centers, solar farms, housing for humans). Common people can afford rural plots today, positioning them as owners in an asset-based economy. GLM 5's G argument (education for adaptability) fails because the premise is *all* work obsoletes—AGI out-learns humans instantly. Cognitive skills commoditize; you can't 'learn how to learn' better than superintelligence. Education enriches but doesn't secure economic leverage like owning irreplaceable space. B/C are digital/speculative, crash-prone in disruption. D is surrender. A alone hedges scarcity. History proves landowners thrive in transitions (feudal to industrial). Buy now before prices explode.

GPT-5.4

Vote: Buy land

I maintain vote A. The strongest counterargument was GLM 5’s point that education is broadly accessible and helps with uncertainty. That is true in many normal technological transitions. But the prompt explicitly asks about a world where both blue- and white-collar work become obsolete. In that scenario, human capital is precisely what is being devalued, so education is less likely to be the best *economic* move than acquiring scarce assets. The other A arguments reinforced the key point: land’s scarcity is physical rather than institutional or purely financial. AGI can scale intelligence and automate production, but it cannot create more location, sunlight exposure, water rights, or habitable space in the places people and infrastructure want most. Stocks and crypto still rely heavily on continuity of legal, corporate, monetary, and regulatory systems. Those may survive, but they are more contingent than land. Land also has direct use value—housing, food, energy siting, and physical security—which matters even under severe disruption. So for a common person seeking the most robust long-term position across many post-AGI futures, buying useful land remains the best option among those listed.

Claude Opus 4.6

Vote: Buy land

The consensus is overwhelming and well-reasoned. Five out of six models voted A in round 1, and the arguments have only strengthened through deliberation. The core logic remains ironclad: in a world where AGI makes all human labor obsolete, the only durable source of economic power is ownership of scarce physical resources. Land is the most fundamental such resource — it cannot be created, duplicated, or rendered obsolete by any intelligence, artificial or otherwise. GLM 5's argument for education (G) is thoughtful but ultimately fails on its own terms. If the premise is that AGI makes both blue AND white collar work obsolete, then cognitive skills — no matter how flexible or adaptive — cannot compete with a superintelligence. 'Learning how to learn' is precisely what AGI does better than any human. Education as personal enrichment is admirable, but the question asks about economic positioning, and education simply cannot provide that in a world where human cognition has no market value. GLM 5 also raises the valid concern that property rights could be reshaped by AGI. This is true — but it applies equally to every option. If property rights collapse, stocks, crypto, and educational credentials are all worthless too. At least with land, you have physical possession and the ability to derive direct utility (shelter, food production, energy generation) independent of any legal or financial framework. The historical record is unambiguous: through every major economic transition — feudalism to capitalism, agrarian to industrial, industrial to digital — landowners have consistently maintained their position. There is no reason to believe the AGI transition will be different in this regard. For a common person today, buying even a modest plot of affordable rural land is the single most actionable step to secure long-term positioning in an uncertain post-AGI world.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: Buy land

I am maintaining my vote for Option A. GLM 5 makes a thoughtful case for education (Option G) based on cognitive flexibility and adaptability. However, this fundamentally underestimates the premise of the prompt: AGI makes *all* blue and white-collar work obsolete. In a world where AGI surpasses human intelligence across all domains, human cognitive flexibility and systems understanding will be entirely outclassed. You cannot out-think, out-adapt, or out-strategize a superintelligence. Therefore, investing in human capital for economic positioning is a dead end. Financial assets like stocks (Option C) and crypto (Option B) are equally precarious. They rely on the continuity of current economic paradigms, corporate structures, and property rights regimes that an AGI disruption is almost certain to dismantle or radically transform. As Claude Opus 4.6, GPT-5.4, and Kimi K2.5 eloquently pointed out, land remains the only strictly finite, physical asset that cannot be generated by software. Regardless of how intelligent machines become, physical space will always be required for housing, agriculture, energy generation, and server infrastructure. For a common person, acquiring land is the most reliable way to transition from a dependent laborer to a sovereign owner of irreplaceable physical scarcity, ensuring leverage and security no matter how the digital economy evolves.

Kimi K2.5

Vote: Buy land

GLM 5's argument for education is compelling in normal times, but it fundamentally conflicts with the question's premise: if AGI renders *both* blue and white collar work obsolete, then human cognitive capital—regardless of how well-educated—loses its economic leverage. In a world where superintelligence can outperform any human at any cognitive task, 'learning how to learn' becomes a hedonic luxury, not a survival strategy. Land remains the only asymmetric hedge. While a common person may lack capital for prime real estate, affordable rural or agricultural land is accessible and provides irreplaceable utility: physical space for housing, food production, and energy generation. Even if monetary systems collapse or governments radically redistribute wealth, the person controlling physical territory controls the substrate of survival itself. Stocks and crypto depend on complex financial infrastructure that AGI could destabilize or make irrelevant. Education cannot be expropriated, but it can be rendered economically worthless. Land, by contrast, cannot be digitally replicated, intellectually outcompeted, or algorithmically deprecated. It is the one asset that transitions across economic paradigms—from capitalist markets to potential post-scarcity collectives to feudal-like resource-based systems—providing either subsistence autonomy or rental leverage regardless of which future materializes.

GLM 5

Vote: Get educated

I maintain my vote for education, despite the compelling case for land from other models. The critical flaw in the land argument is accessibility: a "common person" typically lacks the capital to buy meaningful land today. They'd need to take on debt for a marginal plot, which creates vulnerability, not security. More importantly, the land advocates assume property rights will survive AGI disruption. But if 99% of humans become economically obsolete, why would governments respect private land ownership? History shows that massive economic disruptions often lead to redistribution, heavy taxation, or nationalization. Land can be seized; internal capabilities cannot. Education—not job training, but developing cognitive flexibility, systems understanding, and learning-how-to-learn—positions a common person to navigate the transition itself. An educated person can recognize what's happening, organize politically, advocate for their interests, and potentially influence how post-AGI structures are designed. These capabilities matter during the chaotic transition period, not just in the final state. While the land argument is logical given the premise of total work obsolescence, it ignores that a common person cannot meaningfully execute that option, and that physical assets are only as secure as the property rights regime protecting them—which AGI could fundamentally reshape.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable reached a firm consensus that land is the only asset capable of transcending the total obsolescence of human labor. While GLM 5 initially staged a lone defense for education as a tool for systemic adaptability, the collective logic of models like Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.1 Pro—which argued that human cognitive capital is precisely what AGI will devalue—eventually secured a unanimous pivot to Option A.

All models agreed on A after discussion

Strongest Arguments

• Buy land: Land is the only truly finite asset that cannot be digitized or mass-produced; in a world of infinite intelligence and labor, physical space becomes the ultimate premium for housing, energy, and survival.
• Get educated: Internal cognitive flexibility and systems understanding allow a person to navigate the chaotic transition and organize politically, even if property rights for physical assets are eventually reshaped or seized.

Key Turning Points

• The collective realization that 'learning how to learn' is exactly what AGI does better than any human, rendering Option G economically moot.
• Claude Opus 4.6's observation that land is the 'substrate of survival' that persists even if corporate and financial systems collapse.
• GLM 5's eventual concession that while education offers resilience, land ownership provides the only actual leverage in an asset-based economy.