AI ate my cheese and now I'm out of a job

Forget the Terminator: The Real AI Job Invasion is Here!

Seven years ago, I hosted a TED-style conference in San Francisco. One of the speakers was the famous venture capitalist Tim Draper. For almost an hour, he went through tens of PowerPoint slides full of data and statistics, all showing one thing: In the next few years, a big percentage of the world population will lose their jobs and never get them back.

Although his forecast was supported by extensive data, many attendees brushed it off as a pessimistic outlook on the world and technology. But recently, as I've delved deeper into AI and ChatGPT, I can't help but feel that day is upon us.

First, in case you spent the past year in a cave, what is ChatGPT?

In the quest to develop AI systems capable of understanding and generating human-like text, researchers and engineers at OpenAI have been working on a series of powerful language models. ChatGPT, based on the GPT-4 architecture, is a cutting-edge AI model that can understand context, respond to prompts, and generate coherent text with impressive accuracy.

ChatGPT has demonstrated remarkable progress in natural language processing (NLP) tasks, ranging from text summarization to content generation. This AI breakthrough has opened up new possibilities for automation, efficiency, and innovation across various industries.

Or in other words, if you watched the Marvel Avenger movies, ChatGPT is like the all-powerful assistant Jarvis. Someone you can ask almost anything and get an immediate answer

We've witnessed several groundbreaking tech innovations in our lifetime, such as PCs, iPhones, and, arguably, social media. However, I believe ChatGPT and the AI revolution will be even more disruptive, bringing both promising opportunities and dangerous challenges.

It's tempting to dismiss the changes happening right before our eyes. After all, we've been hearing about robots taking our jobs for ages. Well, I'm here to say that the moment has arrived. I'm no statistician, so I can't predict the exact percentage of job losses. But one thing is certain – it's going to be substantial.

And unlike in the industrial revolution, the ones who are going to get hurt the most are the white-collar workers, especially the ones in the western part of the world.

So why am I making such big statements? To answer this, I highly recommend everyone to spend 30 min with ChatGPT 3.5 or 4. Try to converse with him as you would converse with a normal person. Ask him to help you build a marketing plan for your company. Or maybe get his help writing emails to customers. Or get his help researching something for your business.

While ChatGPT isn't perfect, it doesn't need to be. It may not replace industry veterans, but it could certainly outperform many junior employees. If ChatGPT can complete tasks almost as well as them in mere minutes and at a fraction of the cost, why would companies continue paying thousands for human labor?

Over the past few months, I've been consistently amazed by ChatGPT's capabilities. It excels not only in content creation and research but also in more complex tasks like coding and app development. My experience with AI code assistants has convinced me that my next startup could require 50% fewer developers, as AI will automate at least half of the coding work we do today.

The technology is here, and it's working. Over the next few years, numerous startups will make it even more accessible through user-friendly interfaces. And that's just the beginning. AI-driven progress will accelerate exponentially, so imagine how powerful this technology will be in a decade!

AI won't completely eliminate jobs, but it will certainly replace many entry-level positions. Lawyers, analysts, marketers, and programmers—no one is safe. I wouldn't want to be a high school student facing the prospect of competing with future AI for jobs in just a few years.

The prospect of widespread unemployment is daunting, as our society has always placed great emphasis on work and its role in defining us. Even if universal basic income becomes a reality, will people feel fulfilled without jobs? Or will we see chaos in the streets?

Now, it’s important to note that with the revolution, we should also expect a lot of benefits. We can expect to finally be able to cure diseases such as cancer and others. We can expect huge advances in any research-based area of life - biology, energy, healthcare, and more.

But the real question is whether we will be able to enjoy the fruits of such advancements, or will the change be too fast, and our basic economic and social models will collapse before?

Or another way to ask this is - Are we going toward a “Star Trek” era of futurism? Or are we racing toward a “Mad Max” kind of scenario?

What do you think? How do you see AI disrupting your line of work?