The writer is the founder of Khosla Ventures
Artificial intelligence is scary to many people. Major technological revolutions force a renegotiation of society’s basic economic contract. AI will significantly diminish the requirement for labour at any given level of GDP, and if we are unprepared we will stumble into a chaotic transition.
I’m a technology optimist. I’ve spent four decades studying disruptive innovation, from the microprocessor, the internet and mobile phones to OpenAI. I’m certain AI will do 80 per cent of the economically valuable work humans do today, for 80 per cent of all jobs, faster than most believe. The question isn’t whether mass underemployment arrives by the next decade, but whether we have a coherent policy framework ready when it does.