Tech titans: “real-it” in on AI, or even you’ll get replaced by a chatbot called ‘Chad’

Should we all be looking forward to three-day weeks as Bill Gates predicts AI will gift us? Or should we be preparing for a brave new world of unemployment? Katherine Steiner-Dicks opines on the options

In this article, we cover:

• Which jobs will be replaced by AI first?
• Can a robot-assisted income pay my mortgage?
• Who needs elected officials when we can have tech titans instead
• Tech titans: aren’t you just as vulnerable to being replaced by AI?

Bill Gates, the former purveyor of Microsoft operating systems-turned philanthropist, suggested in an interview that once AI agents have relieved us of the tedium of daily toil, we might only need to work a leisurely three days a week. The only workers who will probably have to put in a 5-day work week? Some select coders, biologists and energy experts, Gates predicts.

Which jobs will be replaced by AI first?

According to a recent MSN video, which features a montage of those very tasks that currently keep the lights on for millions, up to 25 million jobs could be wiped out by AI in the next three years. We are talking about jobs in education, hospitality, retail, business services and more. One wonders if “lights on” will remain a viable concept when the robots are doing all the illuminating.

There is little doubt over the risk of job losses in certain roles. If you are a data entry clerk or administrative assistant you’ll be one of the first to see AI take over most of your tasks and even your job. Manufacturing assembly lines are increasingly automated, and self-service retail checkouts are now commonplace. So, those jobs are already being affected. Customer service reps, too. However, replacing reps with bots is already frustrating for customers. People want to talk to humans when it comes to their finances especially when something goes wrong with a transaction or order. How comfortable will we feel talking to bots when deepfake fraud is even more rampant?

Worryingly, freelance roles such a corporate photography, some copywriting, entry-level graphic design, and translation are also vulnerable. AI’s analytical capabilities may also take over tasks of market research and financial analysts. The hedge fund industry is ahead of the masses on this trend and has replaced many analysts with AI “solutions.”

Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, has even gone so far as to suggest that “the future of coding as a career might already be dead.” Talk about a quick way to create sour grapes among software engineers, the very people who have built Silicon Valley and supported tech titans into who they are today. How does one react when the people you look up to suddenly render your talent and experience quaint and obsolete?

While tech billionaires are sipping whatever concoction their personal trainers tell them to, and pondering the finer points of algorithmic efficiency, the rest of us could be left contemplating our future financial ruin.

Yet, there’s still hope left. Huang suggests AI agents can’t do 100% of any job, but they will do 50% of the work for 100% of people, and AI won’t take your job. It’s more likely that somebody else will take your job who has a better handle on how to use AI.  

Can a robot-assisted income pay my mortgage?   

With talk of humans having to work only half of the time as they used to, it got me thinking. How are we to fund our carefree extravagant lifestyles of avocado toast and streaming subscriptions on a part-time robot-assisted income? Will our employers or clients, maintain our current salaries and project rates because our personalised AI assistants are churning out work at an alarming rate? Or will we be paid by an algorithm, a pittance for the privilege of existing in a world where half of the time we are deemed redundant?

Who needs elected officials when we can have tech titans instead?

Former Google executive, Mo Gawdat, cautions that artificial intelligence could have a dystopian impact on humanity in the immediate future. Of particular concern is that major technology companies, rather than elected officials, will be the ones altering the very fabric of society. They could potentially deprive individuals of their liberty by making decisions on their behalf, spanning everything from economics to health to human relationships.

Freelancers and startup founders (well the ones I know) won’t go down with that. They don’t even like having bosses breathing down their necks, hence why they went out on their own in the first place. But there is no denying it, AI will be replacing human man hours and decision-making as we know it.

It will be like ordering a food shop online and leaving the bot to surprise you with what will be in your order based on what it thinks you should be eating. Those bottles of wine and goat’s cheese? Computer says no…

Tech titans: you’ll be replaced by a chatbot called ‘Chad’

And what of the tech titans themselves? Have they considered that their own positions might be vulnerable? The idea of a boardroom meeting presided over by a hyper-efficient chatbot named “Chad” is, terrifying yet equally possible if Mr Gates’ predictions come true.

After all, if AI can write code, analyse markets and financial forecasts, and even, as some suggest, form its own religion as per Anthony Levandowski’s rather dramatic pronouncements, then some board members may see an interim AI CEO fit to run a company if a founder-CEO goes off the rails.

Silicon Valley’s fascination with AI, bordering on religious fervour as described by Vox, and their transhumanist leanings only add to the surreal nature of this potential future. Let us not forget the ominous message shared in a video of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff saying the company may not hire any new software engineers in 2025 because of the incredible productivity gains from AI agents. This suggests that AI is not going to take your job necessarily, but it will make it so you have to work 10 times harder to keep it, especially if it entails repetitive tasks with little human interaction. Doesn’t this rather contradict Gates’s idyllic vision of a three-day workweek?

There’s a lot to ponder here as we hurtle towards a future where robots handle the drudgery and humans…well, do whatever it is we’ll be doing. Perhaps we should start brushing up on our AI-prompt engineering and AI Agent wrangling skills. Or, better yet, learn to appreciate the simple pleasures of a world where spreadsheets and deadlines are but a distant memory. And each of us gets to boss around an AI bot or robot to put in another hour of work while we loaf about on one of our days off.