The National Cope Index
Which countries are coping hardest with the end of work?
26 countries · historical model baseline · last scored 2026-05-08
Dataset status: these are satirical AI-generated assessments from April–May 2026, not continuously verified national statistics. Automatic rescoring is paused until every factual claim can be tied to a source.
Historical Country Cope Rankings
#21
🇨🇭
🇨🇭 Switzerland
Karin Keller-Sutter · President (rotating)
Switzerland: where the banks are AI-exposed, the chocolate is AI-proof, and the neutrality extends to refusing to take a position on whether AI will destroy civilization.
Services-advanced mixed economy
36
PARTIAL COPE
55 VULNERABLE
Banking secrecy meets AI transparency. The financial sector that generates 10% of GDP is automating itself enthusiastically, pharma R&D is being disrupted by AI drug discovery, and the cost of living means displaced workers burn through savings in months.
#22
🇷🇸
🇷🇸 Serbia
Aleksandar Vucic · President
Serbia is too busy navigating between the EU and Russia to notice the robots coming. Vucic has mastered the art of announcing tech parks that never materialize while calling himself a visionary.
Mixed transitional economy
35
PARTIAL COPE
38 EXPOSED
Small transitional economy with a growing but tiny IT sector. Low exposure because there is not much to expose. Manufacturing and agriculture are harder to automate than services, and Serbia has limited services economy. The bigger risk is brain drain accelerating as AI-skilled workers leave for the EU.
#23
🇸🇬
🇸🇬 Singapore
Lawrence Wong · Prime Minister
A city-state that runs like a well-oiled technocracy. Has actual AI governance frameworks and SkillsFuture. The cope is minimal because the government just... does things.
Services-dominant city-state economy
35
PARTIAL COPE
52 VULNERABLE
A city-state where finance and professional services ARE the economy. No hinterland, no manufacturing base to fall back on, and a foreign worker policy designed for growth that becomes a liability when the jobs evaporate.
#24
🇯🇵
🇯🇵 Japan
Shigeru Ishiba · Prime Minister
Japan has been preparing for robot workers since the 1980s. Ironically, they might be the most ready because they've been automating for decades and have a shrinking workforce that actually needs AI.
Manufacturing-services mixed economy
35
PARTIAL COPE
65 VULNERABLE
A shrinking workforce might sound like a buffer until you realise 72% of GDP is services and the demographic crisis means there's no next generation to retrain. The robots they've been building for decades are about to make the humans who build them redundant.
#25
🇸🇪
🇸🇪 Sweden
Ulf Kristersson · Prime Minister
Somehow manages to have both a thriving tech scene and functional social safety nets. The Nordic model might actually work for the AI transition, which is deeply annoying to everyone else.
Services-mixed advanced economy
31
PARTIAL COPE
55 VULNERABLE
One of Europe's most honest about AI risk, but honesty doesn't pay the bills. 80% service-sector GDP, a generous welfare state that assumes tax revenue from employed humans, and a tech sector that's building the tools to automate its own neighbours.
#26
🇰🇵
🇰🇵 North Korea
Kim Jong Un · Supreme Leader
You cannot be displaced by AI if there are no jobs to displace. North Korea has achieved peak AI-proofing through the innovative strategy of having no economy. Kim Jong Un is too busy testing missiles to worry about chatbots.
Command economy economy
6
LUCID
8 CUSHIONED
Cannot be disrupted by AI if you have no commercial economy to disrupt. Forced labor, military industry, and sanctions evasion are not LLM-vulnerable sectors. The regime uses AI for cyber ops and surveillance but faces zero commercial displacement risk. Accidentally the most AI-proof country on earth.
Scoring Dimensions
Preparedness
Retraining programs, UBI pilots, AI regulation, industrial strategy, education reform. Are they building the lifeboat or rearranging deck chairs?
Leader Cope
What the head of state is saying vs doing. Gap between rhetoric and reality. Platitude density per press conference.
Exposure
Economic vulnerability. Services-heavy = more exposed. How many jobs are one API call from obsolescence?
Screwed Score
How objectively screwed the country is — regardless of cope. Low cope doesn't mean safe. Sweden's honest but still getting hammered.
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