| Artificial intelligence (AI) is the lifeblood of the technologies driving today’s global disruptions. And 2023 is the year that AI has been catapulted from novel idea to being on everyone’s radar. The AI narratives span from the promise of a George Jetson future to fears of a dystopian takeover by AI-empowered robots—and everything in between. To help sort all of this out, I reached out to AI expert Stephen McBride. He surveys the AI landscape and explains where we are today, and how to spot the industries and occupations that will be most affected. Stephen McBride is Chief Analyst at RiskHedge, where he is co-editor of Disruption Investor, and spearheads the crypto advisory RiskHedge Venture. Prior to his professional investing career, Stephen worked at a billion-dollar financial institution in New Zealand. Here are some of the highlights from our conversation: - How AI will automate an expanding share of mundane busywork and allow us to focus more on value-added tasks. This will enable the US to return to a higher rate of productivity growth. - Why AI is not a singular thing. There are many AIs, and each one does a different thing. - The two industries that stand to benefit most from AI from a cost and productivity standpoint. - How productivity and demand growth will define which jobs are at risk and which jobs will thrive. - How to easily start your journey into understanding and integrating AI into your life. - The simple trick to getting the best results when using ChatGPT. You can earn a six-figure salary if you master this talent. - Why it’s too early to start regulating AI. - How semiconductors are at the core of AI and its disruptive technology. This fact explains the explosive growth in Nvidia stock. AI relies on data, and more data requires more and more GPUs. - Taiwan and the geopolitical angle you must consider when investing in AI. Stay informed on the big trends by subscribing to Global Macro Update here: https://www.mauldineconomics.com/global-macro-update I highly encourage you to sample more of Stephen’s work here: https://www.riskhedge.com/disruption-investor-details?utm_campaign=RH-141&utm_content=RH141R001&utm_medium=EF&utm_source=mec Time stamps: 0:00 The impact of AI will unfold quickly and affect everything and everyone 2:10 AI is the next step along the arc of technology 3:52 AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI will 6:07 The two industries ripe for AI disruption, and the barriers it faces 12:27 Will AI be a job taker with deflationary implications? 15:15 Extrapolating what lies ahead by looking at the Industrial Revolution 16:50 How to get exposure to AI to understand how it works 21:03 The art of asking the right questions—tips and tricks for using AI 24:15 The dark side of AI and the regulation question 27:23 Stephen talks about Nvidia and what’s possible for early AI investors 32:46 The geopolitical speed bump to monitor in AI hardware |
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excellent discussion. very practical. thanks.
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I'm not sure that the paradigm of technology creating new categories of jobs actually applies in the case of AI. AI is not only or even primarily a technological innovation- it is the commoditization of intelligence itself- once created AI's can be mass produced to bring about a scenario in which the application of brain power at a very low cost becomes ubiquitous.
Once this occurs then humans will simply become uncompetitive in any domain in which the primary task is to apply intelligence to the completion of that task. In the same way that the steam engine and internal combustion rendered the use of horses redundant in the economy, the ability to create and mass produce digital minds will render most humans redundant in the ecomomy of the future.
The oft cited and so far singular example of a new role created by AI is the 'prompt engineer' yet this 'job' is itself subject to the same colonisation by AI as all other intellectual jobs- after all the entire point of LLM's is that they understand language- so as they are improved over time the idea of needing a specialised human to communicate with an AI will seem as pointless and absurd as the idea of having a human walk in front of an automobile waving a red flag- we will not need such interlocuters- our AI's will understand exactly what we are saying because they will speak the same language we do. The 'prompt engineer' is an artefact of transition soon to be dispensed with, not a harbinger of some new class of human professionals.
AI is not a tool but a user of tools and in this respect is unlike any preceeding invention of our species- These AI's made of computer code are capable of writing computer code themselves and thus have already in some sense transcended the status of mere instruments- a thing that can potentially improve itself by the application of intelligence cannot really be adequately described as a just a tool, can it?
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I think the biggest thing they didn't discuss, but should have, is that a large portion of the population will not be able to adapt to this change. Yes, it may raise the country's overall productivity metrics which is good for the stock market, but at what cost to individual workers? Even now roughly 12% of the population isn't intelligent enough to hold any meaningful productive job, because their IQ is 83 or less. This sort of change will destroy a big chunk of the middle class. That isn't a good thing.
They toss around the example of the country going from horses to motor cars, and talk about the large number of jobs created by the automotive industry to replace the jobs of the horse industries. But what they fail to acknowledge is that by and large the horse industry people were not able to do those automobile industry jobs; they didn't just switch over. An entire generation of saddle and harness makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, even the city workers who cleaned up horse manure from the streets did not suddenly move to Detroit and become assembly line workers. There was tremendous pain and hardship as a generation of workers were made idle and useless, and another different generation of workers found gainful work.
As an overall national trend, they are right. But down at the individual level, there were winners and losers, and the losers went through catastrophic changes in their lives.
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