Beyond Booing

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Hi FAFO friends,

This week I, somewhat apprehensively, released an episode on what Calum Chace calls the “economic singularity,” a.k.a. “the jobs apocalypse.” Calum is convinced it’s coming soon (in our lifetimes, if not in the next 20 years) so, as we discuss, best get ready for it now.

I wasn’t sure how to frame the episode and ended up going with this hedge-y headline “What's Our Plan If AI Really Does Take All the Jobs? We Should Probably Figure That Out Now.” (Note the “if” and the “probably.”) I hedged because there is so much anxiety right now around AI and I worried about spooking people unnecessarily. I dodged it (I think), but Elena Verna stepped on that rake this week, when she published “You’ll lose your job in 2027.”

Elena is a product and growth expert who has shared her journey to and from solopreneurship (she’s at Lovable now). I’ve benefited from her practical career tips on how to thrive in tech. Her piece, which was also sent to more than a million people via Lenny’s Newsletter, features real talk that is actually empowering (tl;dr - upskill now). Still, lots of people couldn’t get past the overwrought headline.

Elena was quick to retreat: “I'm sorry - headline went too far. I changed it,” is what she wrote in lots of social media messages calling her out, adding “if you do get a chance to read the article - it is very forward looking and positive.” Her new headline: “Your Job Is Changing Faster Than You Think.”

I bring all this up not to pick on Elena (I like her writing!), but because things feel fraught right now. She didn’t read the room (nor did the graduation speakers) and her email landed at the same time as thousands more layoffs, which, of course, came with more AI-rationalizations e.g. from Cloudfare’s CEO, who just laid of 20% of his workforce (despite 30% growth), and says AI is not coming for “builders” or “sellers”, but rather “measurers.”

You can feel the narrative wars under way right now, especially as the AI titans’ IPOs get closer, which is why I’m glad college kids are booing AI at graduations. We needed those videos to make real what a lot of people are feeling… which is that this is all happening too fast, it’s built on top of a massive theft of creative work, the environmental impact real, and… no one asked me if I wanted this. So yeah, they’re gonna boo the billionaire on the rostrum when he gives them advice on AI.

But, beyond boo, what do we do?

For one, we can “put AI on the agenda.” That’s how Baratunde Thurston put it in our recent conversation — and that’s happening now.

Data centers are certainly on the agenda, because it’s one of the few areas where real people and local governments have leverage. “How dare they not be approved immediately!?”, bellow Silicon Valley leaders!

And the Trump administration, bowing to pressure and concerned about the most powerful new models, was hours away from putting in place a voluntary AI model review process this week, only to postpone (cancel?) the executive because the President had some last-minute concerns. (Politico reports that recently ousted AI czar David Sachs got the president on the phone and convinced him that it would be bad for our “race” against China.)

But beyond booing and grinding the gears a bit to slow this whole thing down, the other thing we can do is celebrate the breakthroughs. (e.g. This week OpenAI’s latest model solved a math problem that’s bedeviled mathematicians for decades.) Yes, AI is being foisted at us whether we like it or not. And yes, it’s making some very rich, insufferable people even more rich and insufferable, but also… it’s pretty amazing technology and really could do the world a lot of good.

That’s the gist of Josh Tyrangiel’s new book, AI for Good. In it, the Atlantic staff writer profiles “real” people who are, as the subtitle says “using artificial intelligence to fix things that matter,” e.g. how the Cleveland Clinic worked with Palantir (boo! but read on…) to reduce deaths from sepsis and save thousands of lives a year or how Khan Academy is building AI-powered personalized learning tools, something we’ve also discussed here on FAFO with their chief learning officer:

I’m just digging into book now, after meeting Josh at a fun book release party last night, and I’m excited to dive into the good stuff that we can build — and are already building.

Anyway, at FAFO I’ve promised to “celebrate breakthroughs, call BS on the hype, and explore how things might go sideways — and how we can steer the future in the right direction.” And… that’s a lot, but I’m trying…

I welcome your thoughts on what we can do together to steer the future in the right direction.

There’s no new episode this weekend… Kwaku and I took this FAFO Friday off. But that means you can dig in the crates or (if you’re in the States) just enjoy your holiday weekend.

Future on…

~ Dan