Jobs and AI - We Are Not Prepared. We Are Not preparing

We have been talking about a 4th industrial revolution since Davos 2017. That's an industrial revolution size set of changes inside the next 8 years, maybe sooner.

We are not prepared and we are not preparing.

LLM tech is accelerating that impact as the tech itself is just starting up an exponential curve. Massive efficiency-focused intelligence across all knowledge work and then all less than optimum process related areas (2/3s of most firms) improves productivity which in macroeconomics is good, except at this scale, it is such a headcount reduction that demand curves will actually shift downward as real human unemployment/sub-employment moves to record lows.

If you doubt that look at the current computer science new hire numbers or what the valuation of Harvey (legal intelligence) is or read this on consultants http://bit.ly/3L43GkJ

We have too few graduates who were history majors. The destruction/devastion of the past Industrial Revolutions was of world-changing proportions. Now imagine 50 years of change inside one decade.

The David Ricardo anchored international competitiveness will not be about individual companies doing clever stuff with this tech it will be about ecosystems and how those are intentionally managed or under-managed. The ecosystems that will make a difference will be power generation/grid, talent supply chain, innovation (yes you can supercharge that with an ecosystem approach - re early Silicon Valley), SCM / manufacturing trajectory, transportation/urbanization, supercomputing + quantum (yes those have to go together).

We are are not prepared and are not preparing. The 'invisible hand' will not solve national competitiveness/economic health challenges.

Look at the Dickensian parts of the Second Industrial Revolution. The US, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands did well and launched amazingly positive trajectories. Minor note it also created urban slums so not all rosy, again preparation matters. Colonial India (the Brits’ fault), the UK, Ottoman Empire, and the Qing Dynasty all fall off a cliff. The impacts were huge. That level of impact is heading our way in 8 - 10 years.

We are are not prepared. We are not preparing.

To end on a positive note, this tech is already providing massive acceleration in various areas of science that will have marvelous impacts. Ditto ultra large scale analytics (including things like Ocient with 100x+ leapfrog). More on those later.