Go to school, get a job, be responsible, fund your 401k, save for retirement. That’s what we were told. But there's no need for any of that. Soon, none of it will exist.
Modern history goes back 526 years, and yet, in that time, we've never experienced a period of order and peace like the one we've had over the past 60 years. Boomers are legitimately the only cohort in modern history to live in such orderly times... maybe that's why they're despised. But that is not the strange part. What's odd is that we built the structure of modern society in anticipation of this time period lasting forever. Could you imagine having graduated college within the past few years with a programming degree? How about a law degree? If you're lucky, you'll get to work for 10 years before AGI can do all your work a hundred times as fast, a thousand times better, and a million times cheaper. Someone once said that change is the only constant.
The structure of the modern world has never made much sense to me. The world is so dynamic, and we build it as if it's static. 80 years ago, the Allies were at war with the Axis, and 180 years ago, we had slaves working the fields. So what makes you think that the society of today is going to last? There are mini cycles within larger cycles, and right now, we sit at the cusp of a shift in the larger cycle. It's no secret to anyone who has used a frontier model: the world's reality is about to be shattered.
I don't think I could go a day without using one of the frontier AGI models. They've made me think differently, question things I never would have without them, and they've certainly contributed to my PnL. But we must remember that only 5% of the entire LLM user base is on paid plans! This is fucking crazy! Free models are like toddlers and the frontier models are like Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and Steve Jobs combined. So it makes sense when you talk to the general public and they spout off some bullshit about how AGI makes mistakes and that many jobs will still be 'unreplaceable'. Considering most of the white collar workforce does nothing anyways (office jobs are daycare centers), I can assure you that they are replaceable. Blue collar workers are probably sitting there rubbing their hands, but the clock is ticking for them too. The next stage of AGI will come in the form of robotics, and while it's clunky and expensive at the moment, eventually the dam will break, and robotics will be in every household and factory in the world. There are very, very few jobs that will survive this incredible AI revolution.
What exactly does a future look like without jobs? This is a question I and many others have pondered. It's difficult to think about, and pretty much impossible to forecast. It could go very well; people will have free time to work on things that they like, depression rates will drop, diseases will cease to exist, and we will enter into a renaissance era. But it could also go very poorly, whereby governments and the aristocrats dominate society. Think mass surveillance, increased violence, advanced warfare, etc. I don't have the answers to this question yet, but one thing I know for certain is that the structures of the past (jobs, 401ks, propped up real estate prices) will crumble in the new era that is soon to be ushered in. Stay nimble, become truly talented at something (filling in Excel spreadsheets does not qualify), and ask yourself what will become valuable in a world without employment.