Early investors in OpenAI: 80% of the tasks in our work will be replaced by AI, including finance and medical professionals.

The era of artificial intelligence disrupting the workforce has arrived?

On Tuesday, Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley billionaire, technology venture capitalist, and founder of Sun Microsystems, stated at the Tech Live conference that within 10 years, artificial intelligence will be able to "complete 80% of the work we know today in 80% of the fields," including "accounting and medical professions" as well as some "high-paying" occupations.

As one of the early investors in OpenAI, Khosla expressed a rather pessimistic outlook in the face of the threat that rapid development of artificial intelligence poses to the labor market. He advised young people to "receive as broad an education as possible because you don't know what will be relevant (to AI) in the future."

Knowledge will accelerate its "expiration"

During the conference, Khosla predicted that the phenomenon of "knowledge becoming 'outdated'" will accelerate rapidly. He mentioned that he himself studied electrical engineering several decades ago, but now most of that knowledge is irrelevant because it can be replaced by artificial intelligence.

Using oncologists as an example, Khosla believes that well-trained machines will possess more knowledge and have a lower error rate, which will lead to the elimination of this profession.

He pointed out that this technological impact on the labor market is not the first. In the labor market in the United States after the 19th century, the proportion of the agricultural population decreased from 70% to 4% in the 1970s.

Based on these observations, Khosla suggested that young people, in anticipation of the rapid changes in the labor market, should use their time in college to explore as many disciplines as possible. This will enable them to be more knowledgeable and adaptable to social changes.

Khosla also made a bolder prediction: for countries that adopt AI technology, the demand for social work will disappear in 25 years.

However, Khosla is not entirely pessimistic. He believes that there is still room for a "universal basic income" to ensure a "minimum standard," allowing people to free themselves from some work and pursue what they truly want to do.

Altman: People need creative outlets

In response to Khosla's views, Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, added that ensuring a universal basic income is not enough. People need creative outlets for expression and opportunities to "add something to the trajectory of species development."

To better distinguish between real content and AI-generated content, OpenAI decided to name its chatbot ChatGPT. Altman stated that this way, people will not confuse the tool with a human.

Chris Cox, the Chief Product Officer of Meta, stated at the conference that Meta decided to give the chatbot a role because users want to interact with tools that have personality. However, when Meta initiates a conversation, it will clearly indicate its identity as an "artificial intelligence." Cox believes this is important. Having a product that can test possibilities is great, but if the product doesn't make it clear what is happening, then it's a problem.