It's funny. I almost swing backwards and

forwards with my my thoughts on AI.

I guess one of the thoughts that hasn't

swung is that there's going to be pretty

tremendous job disruption. I would have

like logically believed it from like

reasoning up from okay intelligence

increases. What is intelligence? And

once intelligence um is in the form of

these agents where on my phone right now

I can tell my agent to do something. It

uses the computer downstairs. It does it

for me. When the when I first

experienced that I was like wow. Okay.

So, it can do anything that's on a

computer. It can click around. It can do

stuff for me. There's a lot of people

that are paid in the world to click

around on a computer. I'm probably one

of them, to be honest. And then the

other Eureka moment was just in seeing

how my own hiring had started to shift

>> for sure.

>> And I started to notice that we were we

were thinking about AI proficiency in

our hiring a lot more. and that

especially you know I think the guys at

um Anthropic which is one of the big AI

companies said that they could see I

think they said roughly 15% of entry-

level jobs could now be done by AI I

think that's what they said

>> um and that started to correlate with

what I was I was observing and this is

when I thought oh my gosh yes no this is

this is going to cause a lot of job

disruption especially at the entry level

level

>> I think you're spot on with that not the

not the blue caller, but but the entry

level knowledge work.

>> Yeah. And that became my my first

concern. You know, I sat here with Dra,

the CEO of Uber, and he was quite clear

that the 9 million Uber riders won't

have their jobs anymore. What's your

take on this job disruption point? No, I

I I think you're spot on. I mean, your

your team gave me this lovely uh little

uh pyramid, basically. You know, if you

if you think of the bottom layer as um

blue collar jobs, right? uh more people

doing manual work. Uh on top of it,

you'll have those, you know, call them

knowledge workers, mostly doing mundane

jobs, like you said, clicking on a

computer or responding to a phone call

or whatever. Then you have the middle uh

knowledge workers, jobs that require a

bit more intelligence, you know,

anything from a parallegal to a

financial analyst to all of that. And

then of course you know top leadership

and and most people think it's going to

be starting from the bottom. I don't

think it's all start from the bottom.

Actually I think blue collar jobs will

stay for a very long time.

>> Give me a an example of a blue collar

job for someone.

>> I'm a carpenter. Okay. You know I you

know I love to restore classic cars. So

you know there isn't a robot that can do

that yet. Okay. This however you know

any anything that is um call center

agent um assistant travel agent you know

anything that you can do with a few

clicks and is mundane

uh is going to disappear very quickly.

My my prediction is you're going to

start to see very serious impact in

2027. Now what you had had not sensed it

before because what we saw was no hiring

in that segment. So, so that what you

saw in the last couple of years is that

companies were not hiring entry- level

jobs anymore. It wasn't job losses yet,

but that basically meant the workforce

was not growing. Right? The next layer,

I think, would probably be the knowledge

workers. As as intelligence increases, a

parallegal would probably not be needed

because AI can do the research or one

parallegal can do the job of four, you

know, a financial analyst, the same and

so on and so forth. But interestingly,

it continues to go up, believe it or

not. And you know, I hosted uh Max

Tedmark on my on my documentary and and

he was laughing out loud, genuinely

laughing out loud saying, you know, most

of the CEOs believe that they can fire

everyone and have AI do all of the jobs.

They just don't remember that AGI is

going to do everything better than

humans eventually, including being a

CEO.

>> So, let's first define when you say

white collar.

>> You you said lawyers there. What kind of

roles? I mean every everything I mean if

you take if you're a doctor that's doing

diagnosis you you probably will have

fewer doctors doing uh more diagnosis

because I think the NHS does that that

already by asking people to interact

with an AI first you know if you're a a

composer a music composer some composers

will lose their jobs because of that if

you're an artist that's doing graphic

design some will lose their jobs because

AI comes into that and and interestingly

even middle management I mean I I told

to offline about my my startup. I my CTO

is an AI. My you know chief of staff is

an AI. My project management is AIS.

Again, because I'm a geek, I can do

those things. But that interface will

come to the normal people very soon,

right? And and so this may take two to

three 5 years if you want until 2030 if

you if you if you're optimistic. And but

but it they'll start to erode. Okay. I

think the challenge that most people

don't understand is as this erodess and

as this erodess, we're already dealing

with a very different economy. Okay? An

economy that is spiraling a lot quicker

uh and pushing for more cost reductions.

I mean, let let me ask you this if if

you don't mind, then we can come back to

this. Imagine a world where the concept

of labor arbitrage that built all of our

capitalist success disappears. What do

you mean by labor arbitrage?

>> So, capitalism has always been all about

using labor. Mhm.

>> And capital or debt to create things at

a cost that is lower than the than the

price you sell them for. Correct.

>> Mhm.

>> That's it. Uh you bring a team together,

they make some shoes, whatever, and you

sell the shoes for a dollar more than it

how much it costs you to make them. So,

how would capitalism look like if you

don't have labor arbitrage? If if cost

of labor drops to an investment in a

machine that can do the job. Okay. Uh

how would capitalism and banking look if

because of that cost reduction, you

don't need to borrow as much anymore?

And more interestingly, how does the GDP

look if all of those workers no longer

have the purchasing power to to buy the

things that you can uh create you and

and others, right? There is an

interesting disruption that doesn't

require us to get to 100% job

displacement. You know, at 10 20% job

displacement, you're in a very different

economy and an an economy that is

clearly spiraling downwards. Don't you

think?

>> Yeah. I I wonder with um when costs

drop, I think one of the things that

might happen as well is that people will

spend more on other things cuz I was

thinking in my business, one of the

observations I've had is if I make a a

cost saving, I end up spending the money

on something else.

>> Mhm.

>> Now that thing could be tokens basically

spending money on

Yeah. AI

>> but but it also could be hiring in

different areas

>> which are

>> software engineers are like hot property

right now. You you have to imagine all

of that intelligence is sooner or later

going to be not replaced entirely in the

first stages. But if you know the job of

four assistances can be done by one.

Then the four the job of four

parallegals can be done by one. Then the

job of a massive marketing team can be

done by you know a smaller marketing

team. It's not that jobs will end first.

It's that, you know, productivity gains

will make businesses not want to to have

as many people, costly humans, you know,

costly emotional humans when when the

job can be predictably done for cheaper.

>> And then what about this um this this

bottom layer here? There was this video

released by Figure AI the other day

where they showed someone on um well a

robot on the production line for 8 hours

just sorting packages. Did you see this

video?

>> Mhm. At one point they showed a human

sorting the packages alongside them, but

the robot ended up winning out. And

okay, this is a very straightforward

task. All it's doing here is it's

looking for where the label is on the

package and making sure the label is

facing downwards.

>> Yeah.

>> On all the packages. So it's looking

it's um sorting the packages, putting

the label facing down, and it did this

for 8 days.

>> Yeah.

>> It intermittently it would walk over and

charge itself and then it would come

back to the production line.

>> Yeah. But when I when I saw this as

well, it was a a glimpse of some of the

disruption that's going to take place at

the blue collar level as well. Because

you think about Elon Musk, he's got um

in his pay packet, he gets something

like a trillion dollars over the coming

years if he produces and delivers at

least a million humanoid robots into the

world. But his prediction is there will

be a time where there are 10 billion

humanoid robots, where there are more

humanoid robots in the world than

humans. for a fact. You see, the

interesting again the difference between

the overhype and the underhype. Huh?

Most of the conversation is around

humanoids. Nobody's talking about

self-driving cars. And a self-driving

car is a robot. It's a functional robot

that doesn't look like humans. Okay? The

investment you have to put into

humanoids is a little more to to learn

skills that allows that machine to fit

into the world, but specialized robots

are going to do the job very very

quickly. And and so you can easily see

that the first wave like you had the

conversation with Uber CEO is going to

be

specialized robots replacing drivers. Uh

it's going to be specialized robots um

unfortunately doing the killing. Uh it's

going to be specialized robots

unfortunately doing all of the you know

intelligence work uh law enforcement

work. Uh they don't have to look like a

human. They don't have to behave like a

human. As a matter of fact, you know,

the uh Boston Dynamics dog is probably

more efficient than a humanoid at doing

the job that you can assign to it in a

battlefield. Right now, those basically

mean that jobs will be disappearing to

robots before we recognize that they're

being that they're disappearing for to

robots. And those robots will be as many

as every car being made today.

>> I mean, they are if you go to LA, my car

drives itself, but also there's just

ways everywhere. So, Absolutely. And BYD

the other day just announced that they

will pay for the liability of any

accident their cars will make.

>> And BYD is the big Chinese manufacturer

of auto autonomous vehicles.

>> So so this this I think replacement

cycle will happen. It will require a lot

of uh of time to achieve economies of

scale. But I don't think Elon Musk is

off the mark when he talks about 10

billion robots. Not all of them are

going to look like humanoids. And I

think very quickly we will recognize

that many many robots don't need to be

humanoids at all. That there is a a much

more efficient uh form factor or shape

physical shape if you want than the

human flimsy structure. But yes, it's uh

it's about to happen. I I think I should

qualify all of this by saying it it does

not necessarily need to happen. So so

you know people will will hear all all

of this and and blame AI and say AI is

evil. AI is not abundant intelligence is

wonderful. You know, having jobs done by

machines is amazing for us.

>> I'm thinking about the kid that's like,

I know, leaving university now and

they've got a a degree in law or I don't

know, you talked about a few other work

jobs earlier like graphic design or

maybe they did sociology.

>> Yeah.

>> Or maybe they did, I don't know,

business management like I I did for one

day in university. You know, you're

hearing about all these like layoffs

coming from big tech companies and and

it seems that the CEOs of these

companies are announcing these layoffs

with a certain amount of it seems like I

wouldn't say the word is joy, but it's

it's they are very keen to explain that

they're laying off lots of people

because of AI.

>> And I think they think that that gives

them a certain amount of respect

probably from investors for being making

hard decisions and being efficient with

how they're running their businesses.

investors look at them and think, well,

if that's an efficient business and

they're leaning into AI, then that's a

good investment. It's almost started a a

bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy

>> where if you're the only CEO not laying

off loads of people because of AI, you

actually look bad. The assumption is

your company is bloated and you're a bad

operator.

Um, so one of my concerns that I I think

is highly plausible is that over the

next five, maybe 10 years, we're going

to really see a lot of unemployment as

the world has to kind of readjust to

whatever these new jobs are. I do think

there will be new jobs, it's hard in

foresight to predict what those new jobs

will look like.

And then the minute you start talking

about humanoid robots and robotics,

which I think is basically going to hit

society like a comet, like a meteor, I

think the the first humanoid robot from

Tesla or anyone else that is highly

effective in the real world at doing

tasks and is extremely intelligent

because it's powered by one of these

LLMs. Um, I think it's going to shock

people and I think it's going to happen

quickly. Like chat happened quickly. I

think Elon or something is going to do a

presentation someday and say we're ready

>> and you can buy one now for $500 a month

>> 100%.

>> And then people are going to get them

and I think it's going to shock the

world. Um but until humanoid robots

arrive I think there's still going to be

a lot of job disruption to the white

collar layer and I wonder what that

looks like for society when we get to I

don't know 10% 15% unemployment

theoretically which I think is plausible

>> very soon. Yeah. You're not very

different. Okay. You're ju you're just

on top of a baseline that is continuing

to grow. So your your business is

growing. So you continue to hire, but

you are replacing human resources with

compute. Okay? If you if AI didn't

exist, you would have probably had a 100

people more in your organization today,

right? You you now have 100 people less

and you know a billion tokens more.

>> Yeah. So for anyone that doesn't know,

tokens are basically the thing that you

you use. It's the currency of AI. Yeah.

So, so if you if you want to get a task

done by a human, you you count in sort

of like manh hour or or worker hour,

employee hour. In AI, you count by

compute, you count by tokens, right? And

and so the trick is those major tech

companies, they have two sides. One is

they are they need to replace workers

with compute even more because there is

a competitive side on compute where if

any of them is left behind that means

the destruction of the entire business.

But on the upside they are geeks. So

they they know how to build the

interfaces to compute. So they integrate

technology within their organizations

quicker than the average traditional

business. Right? Non non-technology

business. If you want, you can look at

them and say this is the preview. It's

not about all of humanity losing their

jobs. It's about what is the dividing

line before civil war, right? You know,

think about a situation where 20%

unemployment is happening when economies

are suffering inflation.

I say that not to be a scare-monger. I

say that because I genuinely believe

governments need to wake up. Okay?

Government needs to at least you know

remember the COVID years where

governments had to give furlow

everywhere and ask people to stay home.

If people stay home governments have to

be prepared to to somehow sustain those

people until rescaling happens or until

we find a solution so that those people

don't feel uh that they're left behind.

>> A civil war.

>> Unrest, let's call it

>> civil unrest.

>> Yeah.

>> What does that end up looking like? Cuz

on one end, you know, the democ

democratic process plays its role and we

just elect someone else.

>> Does it really? Don't say that.

>> I don't know. You tell me.

>> Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I I I think

democracy has ended a long time ago,

Stephen. I think uh I think we live in

the most corrupt time. Uh I don't know

about history to be honest, but this is

definitely corrupt. Okay. Uh this

definitely is not democracy. This

definitely is not even congressional in

any possible way. this and people are

angry, you know, people are angry

because their tax money is going to

things that they don't choose to uh you

know that don't benefit them that you

know lots of regulations in the system

are being ignored. I mean, I I'm, you

know, I I I choose not to speak about

politics perhaps until my next book

comes out, but uh but look, we have

video evidence of people abusing

children and not a single person got

arrested. Not a single person. I mean,

how can you call that a democracy? I I I

think repeating those slogans is going

to is going to anger people even more if

you ask me. People know that they're

being lied to. people know that their

their leaders are not representing their

best interest. People know that their

money is going to causes that they don't

really approve of. Uh and and ask me how

civil unrest looks like. I I don't know

and I'm not calling for it, but I'm

hopefully calling for the politicians to

start to become aware that this is

crossing the lines everywhere. Uh on

this point, Sam Alman, who is the

founder of OpenAI, he's been banging the

AI is coming for your job drum for more

than a decade now. In 2015, he pointed

out, "My job is to help people destroy

jobs."

Um something he lamented at the time,

but decided he'd do anyway.

>> One of the things that I struggle with

like getting out of the bed every

morning is that like my job is to help

people destroy jobs. the job destruction

that we're going to see by software in

the next couple of decades. I don't

think anyone's prepared for and you

can't talk about it.

>> And in 20123, Alman said in an

interview, "A lot of people working on

AI pretend that it's only going to be

good. It's only going to be a

supplement. No one is ever going to be

replaced. Jobs are definitely going to

go away. Full stop." Interestingly, this

month he said, "I don't think we're

going to have the kind of jobs

apocalypse that some of the companies in

our space advocate or talk about." I'm

delighted to be wrong about this. On

white collar jobs in 2021 to through

2024, he said, "AI will probably replace

most of the jobs people do today. Entire

job categories will be totally totally

gone." in May this month, two years

later, he said, "I thought there would

be more impact on entry-level white

collar jobs being eliminated by now than

has actually happened. This is an area

where my intuitions were just off. What

I find uncomfortable is the bouncing

backwards and forwards and I don't

really know what is true because a

couple years ago you were telling us all

the jobs are going to go away." You said

categorically.

>> Um, you said literally said full stop

and now he's saying they're not going

away. And I just don't, you know, when

someone's like changing form factor,

it's hard to understand why they're

doing it. And I think my suspicion is

back then the incentive was to get

people to take AI seriously.

>> Mhm.

>> Congratulations. We took it seriously.

We took it so seriously, in fact, that

it's now a problem. It's a problem for

these companies because people are now

booing at commencement speeches. They're

attacking data centers. they're going to

elect people that are theoretically

anti-AI and now there's this inversion

where like no it's going to be fine.

>> Yeah.

>> I don't know.

>> I mean you you you're spot on. Uh f

first of all I mean Sam's entire

existence if you ask me starting with

open AI that is about that's supposed to

save the world uh uh by creating a safe

AI then be making it a commercial

enterprise that's worth billions and you

know backstabbing a few people in the

process and you know I I have him on on

Chasing Utopia uh saying clear I quote

this is exactly the words he said you

can find it online.

>> Chasing Utopia is your documentary.

>> Yes. So, so, so he he basically uh says,

"Well, I don't suspect that I I suspect

that AI is likely going to end humanity,

but we're going to create a lot of

interesting companies in the process,

right? I mean, those kinds of statements

uh are honestly not the statements of

someone who's not decided. It's just the

statements of someone who's being taught

more and more by his PR a you know

agency or PR manager to say things as

per a script right and the script as you

rightly said had an objective and a

target either way you know and Sam Alman

I you know in one of my works I used to

say the Altman is a brand it's not a

name okay if you if you if it wasn't for

Sam Altman specifically there would have

been another you know Silicon Valley

disruptor that would have done the same.

I don't blame him for beating the market

for it. The the interesting challenge

here is that who do we believe anymore?

Who do we believe in technology? Who do

we believe in politics? Who do we

believe in the middle of a war? And I

will tell you interestingly, I started

to change my mindset in terms of

believing those who put their actions

where their words are. So, Anthropic

coming out and saying, "I'm not going to

allow my model to be used for human

targeting and surveillance, right?

That's someone that's losing a $500

million deal because they stand by their

ethics." The next week or the next, I

don't know, couple of weeks, OpenAI

takes the contract. That's someone

that's basically telling you it's good

money, right? And and I I have to say,

you have to start observing who's

actually behaving in a way uh that is

making AI work for humanity. and who is

behaving in a way that is making AI work

for their share values.

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