What Will the Future of Work Look Like with AI and Robots?

The emergence of ChatGPT like AI and advancements in Large Language Models has contemplated many people about the future of work. What would happen in the future? Will we loose our jobs, or will humanity achieve advancement as never seen before?

I remain optimistic about this new future with advancements in AI. There are multiple reasons why and it is discussed further. Pursuing a business in AI today is similar to founding a software company in Silicon Valley back in the early 2000s, there is a plethora of new opportunities waiting to be discovered (since ChatGPT is just nearly 2-3 years old).

Emergence of New Jobs

There are multiple moments where humanity underwent a pivotal shift in work and environment. The first one is during the agricultural revolution (10000 BC), where humanity transitioned from hunter-gatherers into settled farmers and animal domesticators. There are many more such events, such as the Industrial Revolution (where human societies experienced a shift from agrarian economies into industrial ones), technological revolution (where humans experienced a shift from manual labour to technology driven work) . If humanity were always able to adapt to shifts in periods as stated, then I see no reason why humans can't adapt to the age of AI.

Elimination of Hard Labour

Autonomous robots such as those being built by Tesla and many others paves way for a future where hard labour is completely eliminated. In the earlier stages, there will exist robots that are inflexible due to software limitations and movement constraints. However, with trial and error, and many iterations of development, this issue will soon be resolved and we will soon have robots capable of performing any type of task a human can. Therefore, there exists a possibility where any form of hard labour is eliminated.

Universal Basic Income and a Utopia

With advancements in AI, many forms of tasks will be automated. There are two likely scenarios that will happen with the advancement of AI.

• Humanity is able to freely do any type of job you want, as credit is not earned through money but by merit
• A near utopian society where you can live do any type of job while not worrying about income, akin to a Star Trek style lifestyle

Since hard labour has been eliminated, society will advance to a point where large companies and governments will have look for other sources of income. This is where they realise that by freely allowing people to do anything they want, they can unlock limitless levels of creativity, innovation, and community-driven progress. The focus of humanity shifts from productivity measured by manual labor to an economy that values intellectual exploration, digital craftsmanship, and collaborative projects.

Aid the Colonisation of Space, Mars and Beyond

With the advent of Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI for short, there arises a possibility of unleashing the next era of space colonisation through the utilisation of robots. Robots can be built to adapt and reprogram to build entire living environments for us on Mars A to Z. This task would be as easy as simply typing the parameters on it's console and it would just blast off from Earth to do it's job, no humans necessary.

I got an inspiration of this future from the video game Surviving Mars, a Martian city building game where entire buildings are built by drones. I highly suggest anyone reading this to play this video game. With robots, there exists a possibility to speed up terraforming efforts and we may have a completely terraformed planet in an estimated time of 100 years thanks to advancement in robotics. The alternative is a slow and unsafe play with human lives, reminiscent of the risks we observed during the early days of space exploration during 90s.

Conclusion

These are my thoughts on the future of work in the era of AI, if you liked this read be sure to checkout and use my AI Book Summarizer Console, where any form of book is condensed into a summary alongside an AI assistant.