A Future Unbound by Traditional Labor - FL#15
Letter to AGI - My Job; You Can Have It
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In Today’s journey, I will present you with what I believe to be an unconventional yet accurate perspective on job loss to AI.
Together, an empty page and I engage in a dance to breathe life into the potential treasures waiting to be discovered in the depths of my thoughts.
I will write, even if I were the last of my kind. It is an art form in which I feel truly connected to myself. I wouldn't stop writing even if 1,000 Shakespearean AI large-language models outperformed me on every metric.
Since ChatGPT 3.5 was released, a shadow of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety has hovered over people's job statuses. What was once science fiction is the barrel of a gun, and most look down it.
Last month, Devin, an AI software engineer, seemingly able to plan projects, write code, access the web for documentation, and debug its code, was released. The job once conceived as the last to go from automation, looks like it may be hit sooner than others - once again, AI has challenged our preconceptions of job security.
Some argue AI will take our jobs, others say it will create more, and many argue the truth is somewhere in between - to this, we don’t know the answer. Regardless of the solution, let me propose a sobering conclusion not often presented in public discourse:
AI performing our jobs is one of the best things that can happen to us.
To Work or Not to Work
It's true that we'll have to deal with the difficulties of the transition in the short term.
We've long been entrenched in a paradigm where we dedicate a predetermined portion of time, contributing to tasks that support a larger organizational effort to advance society.
Soon, those working on the tasks, and eventually those running the organizations, could be machines that look out for our best interests. This would free up nearly all of our time! What if you only had to work 20-hour weeks but made the same money?
What if that 20 hours went to 16, 8, and then 0?
My favorite way to pose this question is to strip the financial aspect away from it. Imagine that a sort of Universal Basic Income (UBI)/Universal Basic Services (UBS) is implemented for all so that you, at a minimum, make what you did previously to uphold a standard of living greater than or equal to how you live now - would you be okay not working your job anymore?
Many argue that we find meaning in our careers and that we will have lost a sense of meaning without the career. I think that careers serve as a proxy for how we derive meaning from life and that without that career, we will not have lost something; rather, we will have the ability to find that sense more directly.
I think the option to work will be there, but we can fill our days with hobbies, leisure, volunteering, or whatever best suits each of us. Ideally, the UBI/UBS system will be synthesized with capitalism so people can still have the capacity to rise above their current standard of living by performing some type of job that other humans value!
What jobs, you say? Well, it's not exactly clear.
But
The desire of young Americans to become social media influencers (86% of 13-38-year-olds) indicates where the future job market may go in a post-AGI economy. Many, including myself, have criticized this trend. What about doctors, astronauts, or scientists?" I asked myself. Initially, I saw this as a sign of a declining culture - but I have since changed my opinion.
"Influencer" will be one of the uniquely human "jobs" people decide to pursue. This path allows one to explore oneself authentically with others, and that creates a connection with people.
I would put podcasting, blogging, vlogging, and entertaining (some aspects of it) in this category. All of those pursuits allow a person to explore themselves, and it allows others to connect with that person - being something hard to replace by something that, while more intelligent, is not human.
In a laborless era facilitated by AGI, exploring one's authentic individuality and limitless unique contributions will become paramount (as I explored in Becoming You).
I propose that instead of a nation of worker bees, we have a nation of flourishing individuals, all pursuing endeavors that will help each other grow individually off each other. While struggle will always exist in the human spirit, we can collectively transcend the floor together if we align AGI to do the work that is not uniquely human.
Imagine that over the next year, you still saw your paycheck deposited into your bank, but no longer had to show up to work. How would you spend your time? This is a question I will grapple it in a future piece, “Market’s of Meaning,” which you can have directly in your inbox if you subscribe
Another potential future is one of integration - using AI to grow and become our best self by integrating in some manner.
Man and Machine - Collective Collaboration
These AI tools may eventually be better, faster, cheaper, and safer than us in the current workforce - but this also means that we can coordinate with them to optimize personal growth. We can augment ourselves in many ways with AI, not all involve putting a chip in our heads. In I, Cyborg: Using Co-Intelligence, Ethan discusses improving his work by augmenting with AI, like a cyborg, and outsourcing some tasks, like a centaur - effectively improving his writing craft.
AI might not perform all of our jobs. Instead, it may integrate with us to increase productivity. While valid, I do think that whatever the timeframe, 1 or 1,000 years, AI will become more intelligent than us (as I've stated in the past). However, we will certainly use AI along the way, and in an era of superintelligence, to improve ourselves. This expiriment is already playing out in many different ways.
Areas such as research, learning, health, fitness, time management, and productivity have all benefited. You can truly argue that any human pursuit can be augmented by AI.
Personally, I've managed to use a DreamAnalystGPT I made to help me understand my dreams in relation to my waking life - enhancing my understanding of myself. It has given me the skills to understand the depths of my unconscious mind, allowing me to integrate learnings into my waking life.
AGI may fully replace the current landscape of labor or serve more of an augmentation capacity. Regardless, It's needless to say we can collaborate with AI to improve our lives in significantly more ways than one.
AGI's effect on the labor market is a topic filled with nuance and complexity, making it difficult to fully express the downstream implications. Regardless of the outcome, we should consider AGI taking traditional jobs a good thing, considering it allows us to explore the market for uniquely human jobs, making us better individually and collectively.
Before I wrap this up, let me make one thing clear: I am no utopia salesman - I don't want to paint a panacea. First and foremost, we need to nail down the financial side of things, which is why I've been thinking a lot about UBI and UBS (FL#9 + more in the works - subscribe to stay tuned).
Without addressing the financial side - people will suffer before they can thrive. If this is resolved, we will benefit in the ways I've stated throughout this piece.
While the future is increasingly hard to predict, I do believe we will be better off for AI taking current jobs off our plates, and even if it only augments our work and reduces workloads, we will still be better off as a species.
I think AI will eventually perform most jobs in the current labor market. However, it will free us up to pursue pursuits that are uniquely meaningful to us—and those may be the 'jobs' of the future for most.
Regardless of which case plays out, I'm excited by the prospect of spending more time on things meaningful to each of us individually and increasingly aiming to achieve what we believe we were uniquely meant to accomplish.
Most are paying attention to the shadow of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety hovering over people's job statuses, but they refuse to see the light that gave birth to the shadow - I say aim for the light.
Till next time - take care everyone!
Dom