The data centres are being built, automation is already nibbling away at jobs and governments around the world are in a Manhattan Project-style race to reach the holy grail of AGI, or artificial general intelligence.<\/p>\n
Big change is coming. <\/p>\n
The only debate now is about the scale and speed of the economic shock on the horizon, who\u2019s going to lose their jobs \u2014 and whether you think any of this is a good thing, not that you have a say one way or another.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe future is going to be very, very different from the past and there is no analogy or metaphor that illustrates the magnitude of change we\u2019re going to experience here,\u201d Elon Musk said this week.<\/p>\n
Speaking to The Economist in his first sit-down interview<\/a> since SpaceX\u2019s blockbuster IPO, the world\u2019s first trillionaire offered the maximalist techno-optimist view of AI.<\/p>\n He believes that within just a few years, artificial intelligence will exceed human intelligence, there could be as many as one billion humanoid robots, and an AI-fuelled \u201cage of abundance\u201d will make cash meaningless.<\/p>\n \u201cThere really won\u2019t be anything AI won\u2019t be able to do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in around five years. The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance where anyone can have anything they can think of. This may sound preposterous \u2026 of course there (are) things that might derail this, like a massive global thermonuclear war \u2026 but assuming there is not World War III, I think we\u2019re headed for age of amazing abundance. So this is a message of optimism and excitement about the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Musk, whose Tesla carmaker is developing a general-purpose worker robot called Optimus, believes that<\/a> within five years there could be \u201cat least 100 million humanoid robots, but maybe a billion\u201d replacing manual labour.<\/p>\n \u201cI would predict the economy is probably twice its current size in five, maybe six years, because you\u2019re going to hit a doubling period where economic output is increasing so fast,\u201d he told Forbes in May.<\/p>\n He has also previously declared that saving for retirement is now pointless.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry about squirrelling money away for retirement in like 10 or 20 years \u2014 it won\u2019t matter,\u201d he said on a January podcast<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cYou won\u2019t need to save for retirement. If any of the things that we\u2019ve said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n In that post-scarcity scenario \u2014 which AI boosters argue will inevitably result in some form of universal basic income (UBI) to support humans<\/a> with nothing left to do \u2014 co-host Peter Diamandis predicted, \u201cthe services will be there to support you \u2014 you\u2019ll have the home, you\u2019ll have healthcare, you\u2019ll have entertainment\u201d.<\/p>\n AI entrepreneur Dave Blundin agreed \u201cthe way this unfolds is fundamentally impossible to predict because of self-improvement of the AI and the accelerating timeline\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s called \u2018singularity\u2019 for a reason,\u201d Mr Musk said. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what happens after the event horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n But not everyone agrees that AI is leading humanity to a good place.<\/p>\n At the other extreme, energy researcher Dr Chris Martenson, speaking to podcast host Tucker Carlson<\/a> this week, likened the race for AI to the Tower of Babel \u2014 the Biblical tale of humanity\u2019s catastrophic hubris. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing new under the sun,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cI honestly truly believe this AI thing, this is our Tower of Babel. It\u2019s a device by which we\u2019ve convinced ourselves we can finally get that exalted seat next to God, even parity, we are God now \u2026 and of course that lack of humility, that pride, that arrogance, has always backfired.\u201d<\/p>\n So is it a story of doom or boom?<\/p>\n Australian futurologist Professor Rocky Scopelliti, author of Perceptive Machines, said he was more optimistic than many commentators \u2014 but only if we prepare to accept a fundamental break in the way we think about prosperity and work.<\/p>\n \u201cThe future of work isn\u2019t fundamentally a labour problem \u2014 it\u2019s becoming a governance problem,\u201d he told news.com.au.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest disruption won\u2019t be robots taking jobs. It\u2019ll be the decoupling of income from labour. Automation can create extraordinary abundance. It doesn\u2019t automatically create fairness. Ownership will matter more than technology.\u201d<\/p>\n Prof Scopelliti said the defining economic question won\u2019t be, \u201cWill AI replace workers?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll be, \u2018Who owns the robots, the data and the intelligence?\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery industrial revolution changed how people worked. AI may be the first that changes why people work.\u201d<\/p>\n The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that around 40 per cent of jobs worldwide are exposed<\/a> to AI disruption, rising to 60 per cent in advanced economies. <\/p>\n Goldman Sachs says 300 million<\/a> full-time jobs globally are at risk of automation.<\/p>\n The World Economic Forum (WEF) projects 170 million jobs will be created<\/a> and 92 million displaced by 2030, a net gain of 78 million jobs.<\/p>\n Professor Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed the \u201cGodfather of AI\u201d, predicts mass joblessness<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cI think for mundane intellectual labour, AI is just going to replace everybody,\u201d Prof Hinton said on the Diary of a CEO podcast last year, referring to white-collar jobs, while also challenging the notion that AI would create new jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d have to be very skilled to have a job that it [AI] just couldn\u2019t do,\u201d Prof Hinton added.<\/p>\n Microsoft AI chief executive Mustafa Suleyman<\/a> is also on the pessimistic side. <\/p>\n Speaking to the Financial Times in May, he predicted \u201chuman-level performance on most, if not all professional tasks\u201d being done by AI, with most jobs that involve \u201csitting down at a computer\u201d being fully automated within the next year to 18 months.<\/p>\n Prominent Stanford University economist Dr Erik Brynjolfsson, meanwhile, led 16 Nobel Laureates in a joint statement<\/a> earlier this month calling for urgent preparation for the economic impacts of radically more powerful AI over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n \u201cThis could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame,\u201d the statement read. <\/p>\n \u201cIt could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.\u201d<\/p>\n David Autor, Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is in the camp that argues AI is more likely to reshape occupations<\/a> rather than \u201cwiping out sectors or industries\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will affect tasks and occupations and roles,\u201d he told the Financial Times last year. <\/p>\n \u201cThere will be many new jobs and opportunities and forms of expertise created by the way we use AI. There will also be \u2026 specific skills and forms of expertise and roles that are wiped out.\u201d<\/p>\n Prof Scopelliti said whether AI would surpass human intelligence was no longer the most interesting question.<\/p>\n He argues we are now entering what he calls the \u201cparticipation age\u201d of AI \u2014 that while the last three years have been about AI generating content, the next decade will be about AI participating in decisions, organisations, economies and increasingly our everyday lives.<\/p>\n The big questions going forward, according to Prof Scopelliti, will be how we govern machine participation, how we distribute the wealth AI creates, how we ensure technology strengthens society rather than weakens it \u2014 and how we preserve meaningful human agency.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re moving from machines that answer questions to machines that participate in society,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a much bigger transition than generative AI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n