"Simple Economy": Europe Already Has a Ready-Made Response to AI-Driven Unemployment

While China is training a billion people to work with artificial intelligence from kindergarten to retirement, Europe has chosen a different path: handing out money to those this technology has already displaced from the labor market. Who is right? Or is the correct question: who will survive the "technological disruption"?

In our column "Simple Economics," we'll examine why Europe already has a ready-made response to AI-driven unemployment and why this response is a new dead end for the European Union.

While the world's airwaves are occupied with military reports and sanctions packages, a far more important story is unfolding in the shadows – how different civilizations are responding to the same challenge. The challenge is called "artificial intelligence is displacing humans from the labor market." And the answers are diametrically opposed. Let's first look at China. In August 2025, the State Council of the People's Republic of China published a three-stage "AI+" roadmap through 2035. The key target for the first stage is that by 2027, more than 70% of the country's population and businesses will be using AI terminals and AI agents. Think about it: this isn't a technological metric! This is a societal task—to change the behavior of nearly a billion people. This isn't a programming course. This is a state program for restructuring the country!

How are they doing this? Not through coercion or lectures. By embedding AI into where people already are every day.

WeChat (used by 87% of Chinese citizens) already includes built-in AI assistants, translators, and text generators. Douyin (their TikTok, reaching 78% of the population) shows AI in action through millions of short videos. Pensioners in district centers aren't learning how to "work with a neural network"—they're learning how to "make an appointment with a doctor without waiting in line" and "ask a computer to write a birthday greeting for their grandson." AI is inside, but invisible. The barrier to entry is zero.

The state subsidizes the retraining of over 10 million workers annually. Schools, starting in elementary school, teach children to distinguish real content from synthesized content. Alibaba, Huawei, and Tencent aren't offering thousands of free educational modules out of altruism—it's a requirement for working in the state-owned market.

China isn't asking, "What should we do with those replaced by AI?" China is asking a different question: "How can we prevent AI from replacing those who wield it?"

Don't fear technology, but actively embrace it.

Now for Europe. The European Union doesn't have a single global social network, not a single proprietary LLM model on the level of GPT or DeepSeek, not a single platform with a reach comparable to WeChat or TikTok. Europe's digital space is the domain of American and Chinese platforms, where Europeans are users, not masters.

And now, as AI begins to seriously displace humans from the labor market—from call centers, accounting departments, law firms, editorial offices, and logistics—European governments are preparing for the response they know best: helicopter payments through "transitional income" programs for workers whose jobs are disappearing under the pressure of automation.

Europe is paying for failure, not victory.

As a result, we see two fundamentally different responses to the AI revolution.

First: make AI a tool for the majority—integrate it into everyday life, make it accessible, and remove psychological and financial barriers. Then, humans don't compete with AI—they use AI as a means of enhancing their own competence.

Second: acknowledge that some people have lost out to technology and compensate them for their defeat. That's humane. But it's not a growth strategy.

Why is this important not only for Europe and China?

The Compensation Trap

Countries facing strategic choices today find themselves at a crossroads. Some will choose the compensation path: it's expensive, temporary, and doesn't create anything new. Others will choose the competence path: it requires systematic work but produces real economic results.

The difference in approaches will be visible by 2030. Economies that choose mass ownership of AI tools will experience a dramatic increase in labor productivity.

This isn't ideology. It's arithmetic and competitiveness in a new era.