Subsistence farmers were just trying to survive. They weren’t trying to make content.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicts that just as silly as a podcast bro would appear to our long-ago ancestors, current jobs will seem equally foreign after artificial intelligence upends the workforce.
“Like, podcast bro was not a real job not that long ago, and you figured out how to monetize it and you’re doing great and we’re all happy for you,” Altman told his brother Jack, teasing him during an interview on Jack Altman’s “Uncapped” podcast. “But would like the subsistence farmer look at this this a job or is like you playing a game to entertain yourself?”
“I think they would subscribe to this podcast,” Jack said in response.
Jack Altman, who runs his own VC firm, Alt Capital, quizzed his older brother about a wide range of topics, including the OpenAI CEO’s thoughts on Meta’s competition in the AI space (he doesn’t think the tech giant is “good at innovation), what life will be like will robots roam the streets, and the gua sha lymphatic massage Jack received right before the interview.
Data already shows that AI is taking jobs. Shopify and Duolingo’s executives have asked their managers to justify why AI couldn’t fill new roles. One economist found that the share of AI-doable tasks in online job postings has decreased by 19%.
During their discussion, Jack Altman said that customer service-related jobs are already being replaced.
Sam Altman says he’s not afraid of this looming upheaval, because society has shown a limitless potential to adapt, even if “a lot of jobs go away” and their replacements appear “sillier and sillier looking from our current perspective.”
“We have always been really good at figuring out new things to do, and ways to occupy ourselves, and status games or ways to be useful to each other,” Altman said, “And I’m like not a believer that that ever runs out.”
The changes, Altman said, will also be less dramatic for the next generation, which will grow up not knowing what life was like before.
“It’s not going to ever seem to weird to him,” Altman said of his son. “He’s just going to grow up in a world where, of course, computers are smarter than him. He’ll just figure out how to use them incredibly fluently and do amazing stuff.”