Yes it does seem to be going that way.
This kind of model can't last long, how "long" that is I don't know, maybe a generation. The reason it can't last is the system will have to spend a constant amount of effort securing itself from hostile revolutionary sentiment from smart people that have little if anything to lose and plenty to gain (see: almost every revolution in history, ever).
Likewise this growing competence crisis *is* impacting things and people saying AI will solve it all are coping extremely hard.
There is a catch however and that's that this system is gearing up to be global and utilizing AI to just be a permanent cop in everybody's presence. This complicates things but I still can't see how this system intends to pacify everybody eternally while maintaining a functional society. Look at this system of reactive pricing some places want to introduce, where by who you are, they'll change the price of a product (some places already have a form of this), this is just bullshit and why would people want to preserve a system that does this to them, that's one example. It's also an attack on the very idea of being able to save money, oh you got some saved? Fuck you, these beans are 3x now because you have savings.
We really have an overclass of capital that says "yes, you have to work your guts out and give me everything you have and uh....like you just have to OK? that's how it works, socialism sucks!" and you see this sentiment and you realize these people at the top aren't all super geniuses at all, though they do have some that work for them.
