As an old timer, my problem with claims that “ai replacing X jobs is [n > 10 years away]”

Where X = ANY white collar job meaning it can be done 100% keyboard and mouse.

The problem with this is that we’ve only had widely available sophisticated ai for less than 3 years and it’s already advanced so much. The amount of money that gigantic tech companies are throwing at it is insane because whoever wins this race may well be the most valuable company in human history. My money is on Google winning the race but another could win.

The other thing that makes this inevitable is there’s a major geopolitical component with the US vs. China. If one country falls behind it risks being dominated by a vastly superior opponent, so each country will do what it can to win the arms race. I don’t see a treaty happening especially with the current admin.

Yes AI agents are currently clumsy and error prone. But most white collar personnel didn’t even know what an agent was 6 months or a year ago and now they’re permeating everywhere.

I’m old enough to remember the advent of e-mail and the internet, smartphones, social media. Those were all big deals and we knew they were big deals when they were happening in real time. I never thought or feared that previous tech would replace my job, I just thought (correctly) they would make me more productive.

AI feels like a much bigger deal compared to the aforementioned earlier developments. It’s already fundamentally changed the way I do my job, making me simultaneously feel completely superpowered but also redundant. In my own field work is already drying up for junior entry level people. It’s clearly accelerating and will not stop until all white collar work is automated.