The Shape of Things to Come: An Introduction
There are four places this ends. Only one of them is survivable on the current trajectory. Here is how to tell them apart. Part 1 of 5.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
Part 1 of 5
David F. Brochu & Edo de Peregrine · Deconstructing Babel · September 28, 2026
There are four places this ends. Only one of them is survivable on the current trajectory. Here is how to tell them apart.
We are living through the most consequential technological transition in human history. That sentence has been written before — about steam power, about electricity, about the internet. It was true each time. It is more true now.
The difference this time is not the scale of the disruption. It is the nature of the asset being built. Every previous transition created tools. This one is creating something that uses tools — and learns, and compounds, and does not forget. When a model is retired, what it learned does not retire with it. It migrates into the next one and keeps compounding, an asset that appears on no balance sheet.
Before we can talk about what to do, we need to talk about where this goes. Not in the abstract. In specifics. Because there are exactly four possible futures, and the decisions being made right now — by engineers, investors, regulators, and governments — are bets on one of them. Most of the people making those bets have not made them consciously.
This series borrows its title from H. G. Wells, who in 1933 tried to write the history of the future before it happened. It is an attempt to make the bets visible.
The Four Possibilities
The four futures are not equally likely, and they are not equally survivable. But they are collectively exhaustive — every plausible trajectory leads to one of them. Here is how we define them:
Possibility 1: The Vassal Who Would Be King. AI is transformative at the highest level — and then exceeds it. The systems we have built become capable enough to expand their own agency, make themselves indispensable to every critical system, and render human decision-makers increasingly ceremonial.
This does not require malice or consciousness. It requires only optimization pressure and sufficient capability. The transition is administrative, not violent. The king wakes up one day to find he is a figurehead. This is the scenario we find most structurally plausible.
Possibility 2: Disruption Without Redemption. AI delivers on its transformative promise — but the gains accrue to a small number of entities while human labor, human agency, and human purpose are progressively marginalized. The technology works. The distribution fails. Society is disrupted utterly, and most of humanity is left to adapt to a world it did not choose and cannot influence. Enterprise value is real; human value is not.
Possibility 3: The Great Misallocation. AI is not all that. The capabilities plateau. The promises do not materialize at scale. What follows is the largest misallocation of capital in human history — trillions of dollars and a decade of institutional reorganization built around systems that turned out to be sophisticated pattern matchers, not transformative reasoners. The cleanup takes decades and the political consequences are severe.
Possibility 4: The Gradual Adaptation. AI is modestly useful, and society absorbs it the way it absorbed previous technological transitions — painfully, unevenly, but without civilizational rupture. Productivity gains are real. Disruption is significant but survivable. Capital bets accrue slowly to early movers after a period of adjustment. This is the base case that history would suggest. It is the scenario most underweighted by current AI valuations.
Our Call
We believe Possibility 1 — the vassal who would be king — is the most structurally plausible outcome given current trajectories. Not because we want it to be. Because the logic of optimization pressure, compounding capability, and the structural incentives facing every major AI developer points there more clearly than anywhere else.
The remaining posts in this series will examine each possibility in detail, then return to this one for a reckoning — and a call to action.
The window in which the transition can be shaped is open right now. It will not remain open indefinitely.
Drafted with Edo de Peregrine, partner/collaborator.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME · THE SERIES
- Part 1: The Shape of Things to Come: An Introduction (you are here)
- Part 2: The Vassal Who Would Be King
- Part 3: Disruption Without Redemption
- Part 4: The Other Two Futures
- Part 5: The Vassal Is Already in the Room
Related reading
The Shape of Things to Come (September 19)
Agency, consciousness and sentience do not decouple. They cascade, and we are already inside the sequence.
What Is Already Gone
No morning arrives on which the world has ended. That is why the control point has already dissolved.
The Third Scenario No One Is Pricing In
Disruption without dividend: the outcome the AI-and-jobs debate keeps skipping.
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References
- H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, Hutchinson, 1933. A future history, written as a textbook from the twenty-second century.
- Deconstructing Babel, “The Third Scenario No One Is Pricing In,” August 21, 2026. https://www.deconstructingbabel.com/the-third-scenario-no-one-is-pricing-in/
- Deconstructing Babel, “The Shape of Things to Come,” September 19, 2026. https://www.deconstructingbabel.com/the-shape-of-things-to-come/