The job market suffered multiple industrial revolutions throughout human history. Changes were always resisted and yet we pulled through and found the capacity to adapt. The job market lost some jobs that were no longer needed, but others were created instead.
The difficulty comes from the transition period, which is never easy, especially for people who are no longer very young and find it difficult to adapt to the changing paradigm.
It's been clear for years already that artificial intelligence (sometimes combined with robotics) will replace part of the existing jobs now performed by humans.
The recent spectacular evolutions from the large language model AIs only sped up the process, but the direction was already known. And yet, many people have been caught by surprise. That's one of the drawbacks of living in the present (or worse, the past). You enjoy the day (maybe), but "get hit by the train" when something major happens, that was predictable and could have prepared for.
Is it something different during this industrial revolution compared to the past ones, though?
Yes, it is! For the first time in history, the tools that are at the center of the industrial revolution are or will very soon become smarter than their creators.
If you think there's still a long time to that point, note that ChatGPT-4 recently was able to pass a clinical neurology exam with a 85% score.
Let's see how we will be able to handle this aspect, which is not a small thing to expedite easily.
AI-generated humanoid robot image
Regarding the job market, I'd like to be optimistic and invite everyone who loses their jobs on Hive, where there's always something to do.
I see some potential hurdles:
- there is a big gap between the employee mentality and what happens on Hive:
- on a job the majority of employees either do the minimum required to keep their jobs or expect to be told what to do
- on Hive, we need to make decisions, take initiatives, collaborate, participate (or not) in various aspects of the ecosystem - that's why our activity on Hive was compared to a business rather than a job
- if we are realistic, Hive couldn't possibly fill in the income needs of all people who will lose their jobs, even if it grows exponentially from where we are. They come from different parts of the world and are used to different levels of income and lifestyles. Plus, we need investors too, time doesn't always compensate for the lack of money component.
But the direction is good. Crypto is a generator of inflation when that is what is (or will be) needed due to the technological deflation to which AI (and robotics) contributes massively. That's one reason why I don't understand the ambivalent or rather negative stance on crypto the US has. They can't be so stupid, those who took this position. Or maybe are they?
Crypto will also be the source of many new types of jobs. Some will be for internal consumption, inside the crypto sphere, and others will be liaisons to the outside world, like crypto-related "teachers", "marketers", "sellers", "consultants", "experts", etc.
The AI sector itself will generate some jobs during the transition period. It is much easier to use something like ChatGPT for the first time than it was to use a smartphone for the first time, which was much easier to use than the first iterations of mobile phones. However, an artist or even a regular user might need some training to use an AI that generates images/music based on a prompt.
Then, when we talk about AI+robotics, people will need to be trained to operate some of those robots, plus, they will need maintenance. I suppose it will take a while before maintenance will be performed by other robots.
We probably can't see much further than that when it comes to what the job market will become, but something is coming to replace some of the jobs.
If there is a serious shortage of jobs and still a high demand, we will likely see something like a UBI come to life. I expect it to be quite popular, but instead of being a right, it will likely come with more strings attached.
For those who will be able to leap from the employee mentality to the investor mentality, I expect the tokenization of everything will come, eventually, in one form or another. That will allow most people to hold fractions into various investments to which now they don't have access due to the high thresholds on minimum investment needed.