Billionaire investor Vinod Khosla believes that artificial intelligence-driven changes in the workforce will be so dramatic that they will eliminate the need for jobs for today’s 5-year-olds.
during an interview wealth Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell Industry giants and disruptors In the podcast, Khosla said that AI will be able to do 80% of jobs — from doctors to radiologists, accountants to salespeople. This large-scale artificial intelligence replacement will basically shrink labor costs to zero and also make the prices of goods and services significantly lower. Eventually, Khosla said, today’s youngest generation won’t need a college degree to find a job, or even find a job at all.
Khosla has been an early bet on AI, and his venture capital firm Khosla Ventures was one of OpenAI’s first institutional investors in 2019.
“A 5-year-old today is less likely to be looking for a job,” he said.
“The need to work will disappear,” Khosla added. “People will still do things they want to do, not because they need to work.”
The shift is dramatic, but Khosla seems excited and optimistic about these economic and social changes. Khosla predicts that over the next decade, artificial intelligence will revolutionize the way the economy works, starting with the technology virtually eliminating labor costs.
“What happens when all labor is free?” Khosla asked, adding that most of the US’s $15 trillion GDP would “disappear.”
In Khosla’s view, GDP will become a less meaningful measure of economic success. He said that while the decline in employment reflected deflation in the economy, it was not a bad thing. He believes that cheap automated labor will lower production costs, thanks in part to the billion bipedal robots that he believes will emerge in the next decade, meaning goods and services will be cheaper and require far less spending—good news for a hypothetical large portion of the population that no longer works.
“Goods and services are going to be very, very plentiful. Prices are going to be very, very low,” he continued. “So I suspect that in 2040, $30,000 can buy – maybe $10,000 can buy – a lot more than what you can buy today with $100,000 of income. So the level of income you need in a deflationary economy is going to be very different.”
Khosla’s vision for an AI-driven future adds to two conflicting narratives emerging in the race for artificial intelligence. On the one hand, optimistic tech CEOs predict that artificial intelligence will take over most jobs within a decade. But outside the tech world, executives and economists are more skeptical. A recent study analyzed survey results from thousands of executives on their use of artificial intelligence in the workplace, and 90% said the technology had had no impact on employment or productivity over the past three years. They modestly predict that AI will increase productivity by 1.4% and output by 0.8% by 2029.
“AI is everywhere except in the incoming macroeconomic data,” Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok wrote in a blog post, reflecting the lack of scientific consensus on AI’s economic impact. “Today, you don’t see AI in the jobs data, the productivity data or the inflation data.”
This scrutiny contrasts with predictions from Khosla or SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who similarly envision a world a year or two from now where jobs are optional and money is less important. Musk envisions professional robots outnumbering human doctors and surgeons and supporting people who no longer need to work with generally high incomes.
These changes may have already occurred. Last week, Block CEO Jack Dorsey laid off 40% of his fintech company’s workforce, citing opportunities to capitalize on artificial intelligence.
“The core thesis is simple. Intelligence tools change what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey said in a letter to shareholders.
Khosla similarly sees a future consistent with Musk’s predictions for AI experts to remove work requirements.
Khosla said there will be a transition period before AI takes over most jobs, and human professionals are training AI interns to one day do their professional jobs. At the same time, while educational institutions may still exist because people like them, they will no longer require job-qualifying degrees such as engineering. Instead, education will be free, except in very specialized fields such as cardiac surgery, and so will the workforce due to the ubiquity of AI in the workplace.
“You don’t even need an engineering degree unless you’re passionate about learning,” Khosla said. “Whether you’re talking about farm workers, assembly line workers, retail workers or accountants, in a competitive economy, these are free. That means prices come down.”
Khosla said the new era of option work will be transformative for the future of today’s young people. This would mark a shift in attitudes towards work among older generations, who view work as something they have to do to make ends meet, rather than as a source of existential satisfaction. Today’s 5-year-olds may not need to find a job as adults, he said.
“In 15 years, you will say that advice now or in the past was bad… to follow your passion,” Khosla said. “Following your passion is more important than survival. I think the survival part is going to disappear and you’ll be telling every 5-year-old ‘follow your passion.'”
Khosla said the transition will be much easier for younger generations than older generations. Khosla said older generations who have to work to make a living feel constrained by work that takes away from time with their children or aging parents. Without the need to work, the next generation will not only have more time to focus on the things that matter to them, but will also be able to think more broadly about their passions.
“There’s very, very much room for creativity, but we have a very narrow view of what we should be doing, and I think that’s a fundamental factor in changing humanity,” Khosla said. “In my opinion, artificial intelligence is going to make us more human.”
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com
