So here we are today with what looks like the Perfect Storm:
- We have banks across the globe that are practically insolvent.
- Central governments that can barely afford the interest on their own national debt.
- Interest rates that are hiked almost every month.
- Inflation is rampant. Resulting in a cost of living crisis.
And then, just when you thought things couldn't get any worse:
We have the explosion of AI technologies, such as Chat-GPT.
Although the AI developments are exciting, I don't think people fully realise just what is around the corner for their jobs and livelihoods...
The pace and rapid advances in releases of AI are already staggering, and it's only been around for a matter of a few months.
What we may have by the end of 2023 could be unimaginable…
So where do we turn from here?
For those with office jobs, the options look pretty bleak. AI will be able to replace many of the tasks that many office workers carry out on a day-to-day basis e.g. answering emails, writing reports, carrying out analysis of data, researching, writing code, preparing documents etc. Both Microsoft and Google have already announced that they will be introducing AI into their work suites which means that many of these tasks will be auto generated and carried out by this new technology. This is set to be introduced over the next few weeks!
So then you start to think about jobs that will be safe (in the medium term).
These are likely to be those jobs that are "hands-on" e.g. plumbers, electricians, mechanics, health-care professionals, gardeners, farmers etc. Even if you can retrain for one of these more "hands-on" jobs, you're still not entirely safe. As there will be many more people (retraining and) competing for these jobs and this will put added downward pressure on prices.
Plus, throw into the mix the fact that many will be without jobs and therefore disposable income will be down, potentially resulting in a deflationary environment. This basically means that there will be a lot less money circulating to be spent and so prices will drop, which makes it even harder to make a living - even for those lucky enough to still have jobs.
This all sounds rather dystopian, but I think it is important to think about what is (just) around the corner.
And it is coming faster than we all think.