Former Google executives in the conversation: AI is humanity's last innovation; embrace it and seize the opportunity.

Source: “Silicon Valley Girl” Podcast

整理：Felix, PANews

Mo Gawdat previously served as Google X’s Chief Business Officer, worked at Google for 12 years, and authored the book “Scary Smart.” Now he predicts that the global situation will experience 12 to 15 years of turbulence. In this episode, he will delve into the seven major forces reshaping employment and power structures, explain why recent graduate hiring rates have dropped by 23% to 30%, and how to build an AI startup in six weeks. PANews has summarized the highlights of the conversation.

Host: You mentioned that we are about to enter a 12 to 15-year “hell” period before reaching “heaven,” and that all this might start around 2027. So, what exactly will happen in 2027?

Mo: I believe it will peak in 2027, and it has definitely already begun. To make it easier to remember, I’ll abbreviate it as “FACE RIPS.” Simply put, it includes several dimensions: P and F stand for “Power and Freedom,” R and C for “Reality and Connection,” I and E for “Innovation and Economy,” and A for “Accountability.”

First, AI is our last human innovation. Most people don’t realize that we are already building AI capable of “creating AI.” They are making shocking scientific discoveries, reshaping mathematics, and understanding biology and materials science in ways we’ve never seen before. The vast majority of innovations, especially technological ones, will be done by AI. As machine capabilities grow, most tasks requiring intelligence will be handed over to machines. Whether this happens in 2 years or 10, ultimately every job that AI can do better than humans will be assigned to AI. Every task we assign to them will eventually be performed better than by humans.

This first part of the “dystopia” is that innovation will take all the jobs. Silicon Valley capitalists will tell you this is great, bringing incredible productivity gains for everyone, and people won’t have to work so hard anymore. But the truth is, people will become unemployed. In the coming years, some industries will see unemployment rates of 10%, 20%, even 30%. When this happens, the entire economy will undergo huge changes. The essence of capitalism is labor arbitrage; if demand for labor disappears, to keep people happy, fed, and prevent riots, capitalists might have to implement universal basic income (UBI). But you can imagine that in a capitalist society like the US, UBI would be funded by platform owners’ taxes, and those in power could say, “I don’t want to pay that much; those people didn’t produce anything.” Over time, this could evolve into a struggle. When supply generated by AI has no demand to consume it, we need a new economic theory—money, jobs, income, and capitalism all need to be redefined.

Next is the “Power and Freedom” dimension. Throughout human history, the best hunters, farmers, and industrialists have received enormous social rewards. Today’s tech oligarchs, because they influence the entire world, are rewarded with billions of dollars. In the future, the highly concentrated power of AI will grant these individuals enormous influence, allowing them to redefine humanity.

Another is the “Reality and Connection” dimension. The current reality is already very fake, whether it’s the content in your information stream or how that content is generated and its authenticity. Some filmmakers now use AI from start to finish, and you can’t tell real from fake. I once met a woman on a dating app; we chatted for six weeks, exchanging texts, photos, voice, and videos. I felt so close to her, but all of that can now be generated by AI. We will even see fully AI-generated pornography and social media