All self-checkouts I see around here are either completely empty, or full of workers who have to help the people using them, at least about 1 worker for every 4 self-checkout stations.

Have some carrot and stick.

Change the voting cycle from 4 to 5 years.
Start with a minimum wage for all politicians.
Every voting cycle, their constituents get to choose whether it is doubled or flipped into a fine they have to pay, equal to double what they have earned so far, including any kind of bribes or compensation, past and future.
Every 5-year cycle, their salary may double. But the possible fine will also double.

High stakes.

Are you sure you want to keep them from selfdestructing?

Remember the show Pantheon?
Have someone make a fake ‘scanning’ machine and tell all these guys we’ll give them digital immortality. “Scan” then, and then have their digital selves go on with their lives.

But those “digital” selves are actually people who are impersonating them and redirecting their wealth for the good of the world, claiming that their new perspective of immortality has completely changed their mindsets.

This is obviously intentional.
Burn down all business, buy the fuming ashes for cheap.
Ding, monopoly.

AI doesn’t exist. LLMs aren’t doing anyone’s jobs.
They help search for stuff, like finding molecules and DNA strands in medicine. Finding a book out of an entire library. Boilerplate code. Frequently asked questions. That’s all they do. Parroting, searching, and other menial tasks that can be done thanks to prediction.
People may save time thanks to them, but they still have to do their jobs.

When an “AI” appears to show any kind of competency outside of being a glorified search engine, it’s because they have an underpaid human behind it actually refining the results.