Word.ws English Dictionary

permanent underclasses

permanent underclasses is the plural of permanent underclass.

Meaning of permanent underclass

Noun

permanent underclass (plural permanent underclasses)

  1. (artificial intelligence) An inescapable subaltern class speculated to emerge if artificial intelligence automates away social mobility.
    • Lower than proletariat workers, the lumpenproletariat includes the indigent and the unemployable, those cast out of the workforce with no recourse, or those who can’t enter it in the first place, such as young workers in times of economic depression. According to some in Silicon Valley, this sorry...2025 October 8, Kyle Chayka, “Will A.I. Trap You in the 'Permanent Underclass'?”, in The New Yorker

Questions about permanent underclasses

What is permanent underclasses the plural of?
Permanent underclasses is the plural of permanent underclass.

Words near permanent underclasses in the dictionary

  1. permanent shave
  2. permanent shaves
  3. permanent teeth
  4. permanent tooth
  5. permanent underclass
  6. permanent underclasses
  7. permanent wave
  8. permanent waves
  9. permanent way
  10. permanent ways
  11. permanent white

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: permanent underclasses (page history and authors); permanent underclass (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “permanent underclasses.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/permanent_underclasses. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.