Billionaire OpenAI investor makes harrowing prediction for today's five-year-olds
The call is coming from inside the house, as even those who've been betting big on artificial intelligence have some worrying warnings about where things are heading.
While the notion of 'artificial intelligence' has actually been around since 1956, things have really kicked into overdrive in a post-pandemic world and since the introduction of ChatGPT.
In 2026, the goliaths of OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI duke it out in the field of artificial intelligence.
Away from fears that AI could turn on its human overlords, there are more imminent ones after OpenAI announced a landmark deal with the Pentagon.
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A little closer to home, there are continued concerns that even if we survive some AI-led WWIII, we won't have jobs to support us.
Alongside warnings from the so-called Godfather of AI, OpenAI has already revealed which jobs it thinks are most at risk of being replaced by AI.
Now, one billionaire investor has shared his own prophecy for where the human race is heading in terms of employment.
Speaking to Fortune as part of the Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast, Vinod Khosla suggested that AI will soon be capable of replacating 80% of jobs that currently keep us flesh and blood humans in work.
This is good news for companies, as labor costs will effectively be streamlined to zero, while goods and services will supposedly become far cheaper. But what about heading out into the wide world of work after we've finished our education, and more importantly, what about putting food on the table?
Khosla reiterated: "It’s pretty unlikely a 5-year-old today will be looking for a job. The need to work will go away. People will still work on the things they want to work on, not because they need to work."
His comments come after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted he was worried his kids would be outsmarted by AI. The question is, if we don't need an education to apply for a job, will there be a need for further education at all?
Expanding on what happens when all labor is free, Khosla claims that $15 trillion of U.S. GDP would effectively “go away" overnight.
For those already quivering that this sounds like an episode of Black Mirror, the OpenAI investor went on to say GDP will become an unimportant metric in measuring economic success.
Foreshadowing an army of a billion bipedal robots (insert Terminator analogy), he painted a picture of a much cheaper way of living: "The abundance of goods and services will be very, very large. Prices will be very, very low.
"So I would suspect by 2040, $30,000 will buy—and maybe $10,000 will buy—much more than you can buy if you have $100,000 income today. So the level of income you need in a deflationary economy will be very different.”
His musings are similar to those of the world's richest man, as Elon Musk has previously discussed the idea of a universal high income propping up a population that no longer has to work.
Khosla again promotes the advantages of AI, saying that education will be there for passion instead of career progression: "Fifteen years from now, you will say—what is bad advice today or used to be...'Follow your passion'. 'Follow your passion’ comes second to surviving. I think that surviving part will go away, and you’ll tell every 5-year-old kid, ‘Follow your passion'."
It might be a jarring transition for generations that were taught you need to work to survive, but for Khosla, we should embrace this new future: "The room for creativity is very, very large, but we are drilled into a narrow vision of what we are supposed to do, and I think that’s the fundamental thing that will change about humanity."
With a final potential advantage, the billionaire concluded: "AI will free us to be more human, in my view.”