Ed Elson

This was a YouTube comment that I read this morning that was responding to Josh's view that I think is kind of similar to us, that this article is a little bit out there and it's fiction, it's not going to happen.

So I just want to get your reactions to this YouTube comment.

This guy says, Okay, Josh, but what happens when AI renders my kid's $250,000 finance undergraduate degree useless because he can't get an entry-level analyst job because the jobs have all been assimilated under some AI chatbot?

Or...

if their law degree is useless because they can't get an associate job because the partners have discovered AI can get rid of 80% of their associates and paralegals.

When this hits white-collar the way automation has hit blue-collar jobs, then what?

Are we all communists for advocating for UBI?

Or do they all pivot to just deliver for Uber Eats?

Oh, wait, they can't.

All the cars are autonomous because of a robotic delivery driver."

This was a popular comment on the YouTube.

I just wanna see if you have any thoughts or responses to that.

I think the thing that a lot of people are feeling right now is there's this incredible cognitive dissonance because the argument for what could go right, as you say, is actually very, very strong.

And we've heard it from you, we've heard it from me, and we've heard it from many others.

At the same time, the argument for what could go wrong is also quite strong because this technology is incredibly powerful and we don't know what's going to happen.

We are at such a time of incredible uncertainty

having a position on either side, both of them are very reasonable.

And that's why I think a lot of people would maybe listen to us right now and say, oh, they're talking out of both sides of their mouth.

It's like, yeah, because there are different futures here.

And there are different probabilities to those different futures.