[Livestream] David Shapiro - AI, Post-Labor Economics, Futurism
In a Nutshell
David Shapiro outlines post-labor economics (PLE) as the inevitable shift where AI and robotics decouple economic growth from human labor by 2030-2035, eroding jobs faster than they're created and demanding new power reallocations via ownership, narrative control, and property rights over redistribution like UBI. Essential future skills include emotional intelligence, communication, and creator economy monetization across platforms, while AI alignment biases hinder profit-driven automation, as seen in Anthropic's Claude failing a vending machine test. Amid rising unemployment, generational wealth gaps, and despair, democracies' release valves and regulatory nudges can steer AI deployment without stifling US innovation supremacy.
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Audio adjusted after initial low volume complaints. Preloaded questions to answer, audience questions welcome in chat, possibly addressed at end.
80% of jobs not intrinsically embodied, trust-based, or fundamentally human are at risk of AI automation. Assumes no new jobs created by AI, automation, robotics—silly assumption. Post-labor economics: human labor no longer primary input to economic growth soon. Jobs destroyed faster than created overall. New jobs like prompt engineers (nonexistent 5 years ago), cloud engineers (30 years ago), cloud data engineers, cloud infrastructure, site resilience.
Tech titans today (e.g., compared to 70s-90s General Electric, IBM, Ford Motor Company with hundreds of thousands employees for hundred billion revenue) have tenth or less headcount but trillions revenue—decoupling.
Fundamental skill: communication skills (on camera, run meetings, presentations, negotiate, talk through things). Shores up remaining jobs. Example: high-trust relationship jobs like sales management, executive relationship management. AI agents handle details (legal contracts), but CEOs want real humans, face on company.
Sales declining as rudimentary functions AI-replaced; remaining sales jobs for aces at relationship management. Primary skill of future: emotional intelligence, social intelligence, communication.
Join meaning economy, attention economy (e.g., YouTube). Finite appetite: vast majority OnlyFans creators average ~$180/month—not livable. Creator economy hockey stick curve: majority subsist, top few make living.
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