Machines & AI Hold the Wallet: The End of Human Monopoly

[The Post-Labor #1] When Economic Agency Is No Longer Human-Only

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The countdown has begun.

In less than 100 days — specifically this April — Tesla’s Giga Texas is positioned to begin rolling out the Cybercab. This is not a typical vehicle launch. It marks the formal birth of the Autonomous Economic Unit.

Stripped of steering wheels and pedals, these machines are purpose-built to operate on the Tesla Robotaxi network, capturing value independently on the streets 24/7.

As Elon Musk noted in January 2026, the initial production ramp for both Cybercab and Optimus will follow an “agonizingly slow” S-curve, as almost every component is novel.

However, once manufacturing matures, output is expected to accelerate at an “insanely fast” pace.
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What we are witnessing is not incremental automation, but the physical displacement of human labor at a scale once confined to science fiction.

From factory floors to residential living rooms, robots are transitioning from passive tools to active, self-sustaining participants in the physical economy.

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🧠 The Cognitive Shift: From Assistants to Colleagues

While the physical world prepares for robots, the digital realm has already crossed the Rubicon.
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On January 12, 2026, Anthropic launched Claude CoWork, fundamentally upgrading AI from a passive chat assistant to an autonomous digital colleague.

Unlike earlier systems, CoWork does not merely suggest text — it operates directly on file systems, orchestrates complex workflows, and executes multi-step professional tasks with minimal human intervention.
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In parallel, Salesforce’s Agentforce has reached a tipping point, now autonomously resolving over 76% of customer inquiries, according to Salesforce disclosures and internal performance metrics.
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This shift is accelerating through OpenCLAW, which enables AI to navigate complex web interfaces as humans do, and the rise of encrypted spaces like ClaudeConnect — an E2E encrypted infrastructure built exclusively for AI-to-AI communication.

Visibility was the last illusion of control.
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The “office” itself is being redefined — from a human-centered workspace into an AI-driven ecosystem where the cost of cognitive labor is collapsing toward zero.

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🕹️ The Reality: This Is Not a Simulation

We must confront a cold, empirical truth: this is no longer a speculative future. It is a concrete reality unfolding in Q1 2026.
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The operating system of daily life is undergoing a structural rewrite.

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The tectonic plates of the global economy have already shifted — and the ground beneath us is moving faster than our institutional reflexes.
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💸 The Core Friction: The Currency Crisis of the Machine Age

As these new agents — both physical and digital — begin to dominate production, a fundamental friction emerges:

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Our financial infrastructure — banking protocols, legal frameworks, sovereign currencies — was designed exclusively by humans, for humans.

It relies on government-issued identities, physical signatures, and human-in-the-loop authorization.
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Can such a high-friction system support a Cybercab that must autonomously pay for electricity at a charging station?
Can it support a Claude agent that needs to purchase compute resources or API access in milliseconds?
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We have entered an era where the primary economic agent is no longer human-only.

🔜 The Bridge: The Need for New Blood

Are we prepared for a world where three distinct forms of intelligence coexist and synergize for global capital?

This is not a routine technological upgrade. It is a structural reordering of how value is generated, captured, and distributed.
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If today’s financial system represents the clogged arteries of this new era, the question becomes unavoidable:

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In Part 2, we will examine why the InterLink dual-token architecture is being discussed as a potential solution — not as a speculative asset, but as infrastructure capable of supporting an emerging machine economy.

Editorial Note
Readers who are new to the InterLink ecosystem may want to begin with the Starter Guide, which outlines the foundational concepts of human verification, ITLG, and the payment layer.
This article builds on that baseline and focuses on higher-level structural analysis.
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About the Author
Done.T is a Web3 analyst specializing in the InterLink ecosystem.
He unpacks the underlying logic of the Human Node economy, translating complex system design into actionable, data-driven insights for a global audience.

Reference
🔗 [Chapter 3. The Evolution — The Macro Thesis]
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Disclaimer: This article provides a strategic analysis of InterLink’s publicly available infrastructure and documentation.
It is not financial advice. Readers should conduct their own due diligence.

Machines & AI Hold the Wallet: The End of Human Monopoly was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.