Technological Rent and Social Stratification in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is transforming the global economy; however, its impact on social stratification remains a subject of intense debate. Based on panel data for 100 countries over the 2000– 2024 period, a fixed-effects model is employed to estimate the impact of accumulated AI innovation potential (measured by the number of patents) on the Gini index and percentile wealth shares. Empirical results demonstrate that AI adoption does not have a statistically significant effect on the Gini index, yet it drives a substantial concentration of wealth at the top of the distribution, increasing the shares of the top 10% and 1% of the population. The study reveals that the quality of the institutional environment and regulation acts as a significant moderator: effective government policy is capable of mitigating negative distributional shocks and curbing the disproportionate enrichment of technological elites. It is concluded that the market diffusion of AI objectively leads to an increase in extreme inequality, whereas a well-designed institutional policy allows for the redirection of technological dividends to the benefit of broader segments of society.