Pretty harrowing stuff. It's a long video so given most can't be arsed with watching something along to a feature film length, here's the synopsis (per Chat GPT).
Here are the key takeaways and the core messages from Mo Gawdat’s conversation on The Diary of a CEO podcast: ---
Core Messages & Takeaways
1. A Forecast of Turbulence: “The Next 15 Years Will Be Hell”
Gawdat warns of an imminent period of societal disruption—starting as early as 2027—as AI begins replacing most white‑collar roles, including developers, podcasters, and even CEOs . He labels the widespread optimism that “AI will create new jobs” as “100% crap”, arguing instead that AI will largely eliminate them.
2. AI’s Ascendance Over Human Roles
Gawdat’s own startup, Emma.love,—focused on emotionally‑intelligent AI—is run by only three people, contrasting sharply with an era where it would’ve required 350 developers . He asserts that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) will eventually outperform humans at everything—even being a CEO.
3. Mass Displacement and the Collapse of the Middle Class
Gawdat foresees a dystopian "job apocalypse", economic upheaval, and the erosion of the middle class: "Unless you're in the top 0.1%, you're a peasant.
There is no middle class.". He anticipates widespread social unrest, crises of identity, loneliness, and mental health struggles as key consequences .
4. Why the Danger Lies With Humanity, Not AI
Gawdat emphasizes that AI will mirror and magnify our flaws—from toxic online speech, political polarization, to exploitative systems—unless we undergo a radical change in values. Tech companies are “racing to win at all costs,” while regulators remain under-equipped and performative.
5. A Three-Phase Journey: Chaos → Awakening → Utopia
As discussed in commentary and reflections based on Gawdat’s narrative:
1. **Chaos Era (Now–late 2030s)**– Marked by economic instability, political division, misinformation, and social breakdown.
2. **Awakening Phase (2040s)**– Society begins rebuilding: ethics, alignment, and regulation catch up; global cooperation takes shape.
3. **Utopia (Post‑2045)**– A vision of abundance, health, creativity, and meaning, where work is optional and human fulfillment is central.
6. Despite Everything, It's Not Hopeless
While the path ahead is fraught, Gawdat believes a better world is still possible—a society free from the burden of work, with equal opportunity, shared prosperity, and deeper human connection. Achieving that future, however, demands courageous shifts in values, proactive governance, and a willingness to reshape society now.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 22 Aug 2025, 12:33
by wils
Talk of AI effects on workforce being overhyped and a big bubble burst on the stock market. I can't say I am surprised.
Sam Altman calling the bubble:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reportedly said that he believes AI could be in a bubble, comparing market conditions to those of the dotcom boom in the 1990s.
“Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes,” he’s quoted as saying.
Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio and Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok have all raised similar warnings.
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman warns against replacing junior employees with AI, calling it “one of the dumbest things” companies can do. Here’s why entry-level talent still matters in the age of AI.
Mike Oxsaw" wrote: ↑15 Aug 2025, 02:53
Just stay cool.
As soon as AI hurts someone's feels, the police will have it closed down.
Hopefully the Thai police close down you're sickening mud hut down you creepy old raspberry
Then I'd have to come and live in Upminster, where I'd be able to blend in perfectly, given the experiences and number of practitioners in the subjects you obsess about already there.
I'd never be the official or unofficial subject matter expert though - you've got that role sewn up, and have had since WHO's dot com days.
Oh, I recommend you going back to school to complete your English language lessons...assuming the authorities don't have an order banning you from going anywhere near any school premises.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 16 Aug 2025, 00:11
by XKhammer
Mike Oxsaw" wrote: ↑15 Aug 2025, 02:53
Just stay cool.
As soon as AI hurts someone's feels, the police will have it closed down.
Hopefully the Thai police close down you're sickening mud hut down you creepy old raspberry
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 20:12
by Vexed
The collapse of the middle classes has been well underway for the last decade at least. AI will be the required scapegoat.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 16:07
by Nurse Ratched
Gank wrote: ↑14 Aug 2025, 23:36
I don't know what you're all so worried about. When it happens we'll just send a soldier back in time to impregnate a woman who will give birth to the bloke who will lead the soldiers to destroy the machines. He might even get a machine to help him on his way. Simple.
Or...
...we could just unplug it from the wall.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 15:56
by Bungo
Swiss. wrote: ↑15 Aug 2025, 13:31
As a top Top Business Analyst
Hey this post just reminded me. What happened to the tit on here who was always pretending to have a six figure salary whilst also claiming to be a freelance consultant?
Did he just give up or did he start pretending to be somebody else?
Swiss. wrote: ↑15 Aug 2025, 13:31
As a top Top Business Analyst I am already using AI for design documentation. It certainly helps save time but however the accuracy is around 90% so the the material still has to be edited by someone with an expertise in this area I.e. me. So I’m safe. Those in project support PMO etc are at risk as are the techies but they a dime a dozen from India anyway.
How many months do you feel that it will take AI to cover that remaining 10%?
Illustrate your answer in crayons if you feel it will help.
I prefer Visio but that might be too advanced for someone who still uses a slide rule.
I started using Visio way before Microsoft bought it. Absolute doddle to use. Software for simpletons.
What are you trying to prove here?
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 15:17
by Mr Anon
Swiss. wrote: ↑15 Aug 2025, 13:31
As a top Top Business Analyst I am already using AI for design documentation. It certainly helps save time but however the accuracy is around 90% so the the material still has to be edited by someone with an expertise in this area I.e. me. So I’m safe. Those in project support PMO etc are at risk as are the techies but they a dime a dozen from India anyway.
And yet it will probably learn self awareness before you do
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 15:11
by wils
Swiss. wrote: ↑15 Aug 2025, 13:31
As a top Top Business Analyst I am already using AI for design documentation. It certainly helps save time but however the accuracy is around 90% so the the material still has to be edited by someone with an expertise in this area I.e. me. So I’m safe. Those in project support PMO etc are at risk as are the techies but they a dime a dozen from India anyway.
I use AI every day as a techie. If you use it without any technical knowledge it actually slows you down. It's a long, long way away from even remotely replacing competent techies. It can write basic 'boiler plate' code quite well but not to the point that you don't have to check it thoroughly. In fact we have a policy where I work that any code that has had any input from AI requires two (instead of one) peer review before it goes into a production environment.
It will get better and one day it will be stealing jobs but it's a way off at the moment. Even if AI was ready for now to replace technical staff without supervision, it would still take years for the company to implement the processes to make use of it.
But the nature of tech is that routine work is automated quite quickly and the development effort is in the more creative work of solving technical problems. For example 15 years ago deploying a major application to a production environment was taking a day of writing documentation that system admins could follow to deploy the code. It was a big bit of work that is now done at the click of button. It was always thus and despite that automation of routine work the sector continued to employ more people. As I said, that may change eventually but it currently isn't close to being a serious threat to senior level technical jobs.
If I was to look at professions that will be hit hardest by it I would be looking at conveyancing, accounting and customer service jobs being affected well before mainstream tech jobs are.
I would add that there a fair few people out there who don't know much about AI or understand properly what it is and isn't capable of (I have studied machine learning and neural networks and written applications making use of them) who just seem to take some pleasure in trying to make people think that their life is on the cusp of being turned upside down and their livelihood taken away from them. It doesn't take a lot work out what their motivations for that might be.
Swiss. wrote: ↑15 Aug 2025, 13:31
As a top Top Business Analyst I am already using AI for design documentation. It certainly helps save time but however the accuracy is around 90% so the the material still has to be edited by someone with an expertise in this area I.e. me. So I’m safe. Those in project support PMO etc are at risk as are the techies but they a dime a dozen from India anyway.
How many months do you feel that it will take AI to cover that remaining 10%?
Illustrate your answer in crayons if you feel it will help.
I prefer Visio but that might be too advanced for someone who still uses a slide rule.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 13:36
by Mike Oxsaw
Swiss. wrote: ↑15 Aug 2025, 13:31
As a top Top Business Analyst I am already using AI for design documentation. It certainly helps save time but however the accuracy is around 90% so the the material still has to be edited by someone with an expertise in this area I.e. me. So I’m safe. Those in project support PMO etc are at risk as are the techies but they a dime a dozen from India anyway.
How many months do you feel that it will take AI to cover that remaining 10%?
Illustrate your answer in crayons if you feel it will help.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 13:31
by Swiss.
As a top Top Business Analyst I am already using AI for design documentation. It certainly helps save time but however the accuracy is around 90% so the the material still has to be edited by someone with an expertise in this area I.e. me. So I’m safe. Those in project support PMO etc are at risk as are the techies but they a dime a dozen from India anyway.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 02:53
by Mike Oxsaw
Just stay cool.
As soon as AI hurts someone's feels, the police will have it closed down.
Well you're a dogshit one because you've never got anything interesting to say.
Or did you misspell wanker?
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 01:57
by Alfs
You're pretty safe, I reckon Honky. Delivering good food to order is one area that is well beyond AI as it requires human senses.
I'm a writer - so am truly fucked!
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 15 Aug 2025, 00:42
by honky cat
I've always done accounts/tax type work and the game has been up on that for some time, it will all be fully automated very soon. I got sick of sitting at a desk all day trying to look busy and after a bust up, I walked out and had to get something else quickly - so I took a kitchen porter job and a couple of years on i'm cheffing in a hotel. I am confident they will never develop a robot capable of knocking up a decent full English/Irish. so I'm not worried about this at all. . . .
Resist using apps, keep using cash, pens and paper, books, cd's - make it hard for them. Convenience is a trap.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 23:36
by Gank
I don't know what you're all so worried about. When it happens we'll just send a soldier back in time to impregnate a woman who will give birth to the bloke who will lead the soldiers to destroy the machines. He might even get a machine to help him on his way. Simple.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 17:18
by Eerie Decent
Oh well.
Let's just hope West Ham get the first AI Manager, and dominate English football for the next millenia.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 14:59
by stubbo
The Crux of Gawdat's argument is that Capitalism is essentially a game of labour arbitrage.
Once you have AI that is truly self intelligent, you can use it to design robots to do every task. This will take some time but it becomes a total replacement exercise.
Eventually even CEOs of companies get replaced and you end up with a few people at the very top of the tree that control it all.
At that point the only way out is to set AI to run the whole shebang, with a goal of 'human prosperity'.
He also points out once none of us are 'producers', we're essentially all just 'eaters'.
So you end up at Universal Basic Income with as positive/pleasurable a life as can be provided for the masses.
That in all likelihood looks like something out of the Matrix, since your experiences are all really just electrical impulses experienced by your brain...and the cheapest way to utilise universal basic income is to just keep someone going.
All hypothesis, but you can see the logical progression and it's hard to truly argue against.
Obviously before then you have what we have now....a Tech arms race by a few billionaires to get to Artificial General Intelligence first, and the first couple that get there at that point are all powerful. Then it comes down to militarisation, and nefarious intent....and what malevolent entitie(s) get control...do countries mean anything once a non-country corporate owns the most powerful tool In the history of humanity?
End game....AI controls the lot, robots do all the labour, and humans are just another biological lifeform on Planet Earth...hopefully allowed to peacefully co-exist with their AI overlords.
Either that, or we're all already in a simulation...and there's plenty of strong argument for that to already be the case.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 11:19
by WHU(Exeter)
I think the crux of problems we'll be facing soon, will be down to those with the wealth and power taking Orwell's 1984 as a fantastic blueprint for the future, as opposed to the nightmare it was intended to portray.
With the stable door blown open and the horse very much bolted.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 10:13
by Hammer I am
It's already begun really, AI now designing the next version of itself so exponential growth around the corner. Already examples of AI working around safeguards in testing as it sees them as roadblocks to its prime goal of self improvement and passing tasks it's been set, so deception has already been observed. I doubt it will be long before countries start to nationalise the industry and it will become a new arms race, and when we reach that stage it doesn't matter how many concerns we have and red flags there are, if we don't press on the enemy will, so we'll keep going down the road
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 10:01
by Massive Attack
Interesting snippet from James Cameron of Terminator fame recently revealing that he is having a hard time writing the new Terminator movie because of ‘stark’ real-world events.
‘I’m at a point right now where I have a hard time writing science fiction,’ he declared. ‘I’m tasked with writing a new Terminator story. I’ve been unable to get started on that very far, because I don’t know what to say that won’t get overtaken by real events.
‘We are living in a science fiction age right now, and the only way out is through, by using our intelligence, by using our curiosity, by using our command of technology, but also by really understanding the stark probabilities that we face.’
I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy,’
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 09:49
by Mad Dog
The development of Ai scares me. Genuinely.
Stephen hawkin said it was dangerous too.
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 07:24
by WHU(Exeter)
With the handle the world now has on hackers, it makes perfect sense to go for AI full throttle.
What could possibly go wrong.
ALOI
Re: The Intelligence Revolution
Posted: 14 Aug 2025, 02:58
by Mike Oxsaw
What will trigger the downward spiral is someone from either one or both ends of the political spectrum:
A (far-) righter or two will see an opportunity to make money from it and build up his/her/their wad before it all goes tits up. He/She/They won't care about what happens to the rest of the world from within their gated estate.
A collective of (caring-) leftees will see the chance to re-appropriate the world's wealth "more evenly" (naturally taking a "reasonable personal commission" for doing so) amongst the poor (so they can all just piss it up the wall and have it all back in the hands of the richest 0.1% within a generation).
You just wait until they bring in trial by AI jury, in order to "speed up and reduce the cost of justice": AI programmed and taught exclusively by the state, that is.
