This is a submission for the 2025 New Year Writing challenge: Predicting 2025.
When we think about how AI will change how we work, I see three possible futures - two that could be good and one that's scary. Let me explain.
Types of Jobs
First, let's make it simple. There are two types of jobs:
- People who work with information and computers
- People who work with their hands and physical skills
Throughout history, humans have always wanted two main things from work:
- To work fewer hours
- To make work less physically hard
We naturally want things to be easier. But there's something new - especially in rich countries; we now want our work to make us feel good and give us purpose, not just help us survive.
As AI changes these essential work parts, three different futures could arise. Let's look at what each one means for workers.
Three Possible Futures
Future 1: AI Stays a Helper Tool
In the future, AI will never be as intelligent as humans. It stays a powerful helper that makes humans better at their jobs instead of replacing them. People who work with computers might use AI to work much faster - like devs making big computer programs in days instead of months or people looking at data to find answers in minutes instead of weeks.
This could lead to three things:
- Computer devs become more valuable because they're good at using AI
- We might need fewer devs because AI makes programming easier
- As Naval thinks, maybe devs can even replace all other jobs
The main thing is that humans stay in charge, with AI being like an intelligent assistant. Computers might do tedious office work, but most jobs remain the same.
Future 2: Super-Smart AI Arrives - A World of Plenty
If we create AI that's as smart as humans at everything, our whole way of life could change. Office jobs might not be needed anymore - why have humans analyze things when AI can do it perfectly? The only human job left might be to make sure AI systems do what humans want them to do.
"There will come a time when no job is needed," says Elon Musk talking to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. At a special meeting where reporters couldn't ask questions and TV cameras were limited, Musk said AI will eventually become smarter than the smartest humans. [Source: BBC News, 2023]
As robots get better along with AI, physical jobs could also disappear. This could lead to a world where there's enough of everything, and traditional work becomes optional. We'd need to figure out new ways to share things and help people feel helpful in a world without human work.
Future 3: The Rough Change
This is the scariest future. Instead of smoothly changing into either of the good futures, we could have big problems. AI might take away jobs faster than we can make new ones or change how our economy works.
"I mean, it's crazy. We're talking about having a huge increase in productivity, so there's going to be more goods and services for everybody, so everybody ought to be better off. But actually, it's going to be the other way around, and it's because we live in a capitalist society. So what's going to happen is this huge increase in productivity is going to make much more money for the big companies and the rich, and it's going to increase the gap between the rich and the people who lose their jobs. And as soon as you increase that gap, you get fertile ground for fascism. And so it's very scary that we may be at a point where we're just making things worse and worse. And it's crazy because we're doing something that should help everybody, and obviously it will help in healthcare, it will help in education, but if the profits just go to the rich, that's going to make society worse."
— Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize talk, 2024
This could cause:
- Rich people (who own AI) getting richer, and poor people getting poorer
- Lots of people losing their jobs, both office workers and physical workers
- People getting angry because they can't make money like before
- Everyone struggling to figure out what humans should do for work
Looking Forward
Which future do you think will happen? Our path depends on how we develop AI and how we prepare for the changes it will bring.
The most important thing is to start talking about these possibilities now, while we still have time to help choose which future becomes real.
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