but in any world with that sort of AI, huge numbers of jobs all through the economy would be no-go zones for humans.
It adds strength to our (comic) creator's decision to give AIs civil rights. Given the current tendency to a self perpetuating oligarchy in the form of an executive class which is increasingly multiplying its own wealth at the expense of the rest of the population then a huge population of AIs who were effectively slaves would destroy the economic system and surely lead to riots on the streets.
Who says there'd be riots? Policing could be one of the many jobs taken over by AI, purpose-built for the job even, and they'd probably be very good at their assigned task. They wouldn't get bored or tired, and would probably be in combat bodies similar to Bubbles' so they'd be difficult to damage. Plus, to increase their efficiency they'd have cameras put up at every intersection, maybe even every corner, to watch out for impending trouble. Meaning, any gathering of humans that even looks like it
might turn violent would be pounced on by squads of police AI, the perpetrators whisked away to jail before they knew what hit them. Potential troublemakers would be tracked online via their social media posts, and watched closely. Rioting, even peaceful civil disobedience, would be impossible to pull off under those circumstances. So would many other kinds of street crime for that matter - AI would own the streets.
But in such a world many low-level jobs like barista and "office bitch" would be taken by AI, so several of our characters (Marten and Faye foremost among them) would have a great deal of trouble finding and keeping a job. Seeing as that's not happening in the QC verse, I can think of a few reasons why;
- AI civil rights mean they have to be paid a living wage equivalent to a human, so there's no special advantage in hiring them over a human
- there are few AI around. After all, most QC human characters don't have an AI companion, and we've only seen a few AI working actual jobs
- AI are generally picky about what jobs they take, yet another reason you see few of them gainfully employed (May's a notable exception, but she's on parole so has to take any job she can get to stay out of Robot Jail)