My answers to 4 hard AI questions

I was recently presenting to a room of global leaders, family offices, and CEOs and was asked to answer four difficult questions about AI and longevity, and the impact on jobs, education, and health.

In brief, here’s what I said.

But more importantly, this is how I think about the problems.

What happens when AI & robots take over today’s jobs?

For all of human history, technology has always *created* more jobs than it destroyed. Question is, will it be different this time? (Answer: we’re going to find out soon.)

The World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, we’ll see 170 million new jobs created, offset by 92 million displaced—a net gain of 78 million jobs globally. Maybe. But statistics rarely tell the full story.

Jobs (employment) serve two separate masters. First, providing us income to survive, enabling us to pay for food, shelter, education, health, and entertainment. Second, and perhaps more importantly, employment delivers us “identity and purpose.”

So, what’s the impact of AI on jobs?

1. AI will take away the need for us to work for goods and services. We are heading towards a world of abundance—where we can have whatever we want. Food, shelter, education, health, and entertainment will be available either for free, or be massively demonetized. As the spiritual leader Sadhguru once told me: “Technology is the means by which humanity takes a vacation from survival.”

2. My biggest concern is how AI will impact our sense of purpose. AI will force us to uplevel our ambitions. What we do today will be easy… quaint, so we must grasp higher. Rather than being a shackle, AI can become a jetpack enabling everyone, independent of where they were born, to dream bigger than ever.

3. AI will force the creation of a new social contract. Likely some form of universal basic income. We will separate work for survival, from work for purpose.

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What’s your perspective on using AI in schools today?

Our educational systems (K – 12) are massively broken. They are not preparing our kids for the future they are about to inherit. Rather than chastise kids for using AI in all subjects, we need to teach our kids to master the use of AI for all subjects.

China has already mandated that primary and secondary schools must introduce AI instruction for all primary and secondary students by September 1, 2025. Estonia is bringing AI tools into schools for 20,000 students during this same timeframe.

Studies show AI is enhancing retention rates by 30% through personalized learning.

A Texas private school founded by a friend, Mackenzie Price, is seeing student test scores soar to new heights following the implementation of an AI tutor. Mackenzie’s Alpha School (based in Austin, Texas) students use an AI assistant for two hours a day, the rest of the day focusing on skills like public speaking, financial literacy, and teamwork. That strategy has resulted in her students learning faster and placing them in the top 2% in the country.

Again, AI is not a shackle, it’s a rocket ship. The best educators and schools in the world will fully utilize AI and enable our children to become AI natives.

Can Earth support humanity if we extend human healthspan by 30+ years?

Yes, without question – for two main reasons:

1. We don’t have an over-population problem (like we did in the mid-20th century); we are in the midst of a serious *under-population problem.* Most all western nations have a plummeting reproduction rate. Humanity needs humans to survive.

2. Technology is enabling us to reinvent how we more efficiently produce energy, food, and water; minimizing our carbon footprint by supporting innovations like vertical farming and lab-grown meat from stem cells, ultimately helping to lessen the burden of 23 billion chickens, 1.5 billion cows, and 1 billion pigs on our planet. Instead of growing an entire cow, we’re just going to grow the meat product with the best protein and fats. The convergence of breakthroughs in material sciences and AI are driving a revolution in how we capture and reverse greenhouse gas emissions.

Will working longevity therapies only be for the wealthy?

For most of the past century, when a new technology was released, it had 3 key attributes: (1) it was expensive; (2) it was used mostly by the wealthy; and (3) it didn’t work very well.

Think of the first cellphones, purchased by Wallstreet bankers for $10,000, dropping a call every two blocks. Fast forward 30 years and now there are billions of smartphones that cost under $100 and work perfectly supporting thousands of apps.

The same thing will be true for longevity therapies. In the beginning, the billionaires and centimillionaires may be the guinea pigs, but in no time, the prices will plummet, they will work better and become widely accessible.

There is an important (and recent) proof point to consider.

Once a longevity treatment is developed and approved, it is likely to be a “gene therapy” enabling epigenetic reprogramming. To date, the gene therapies developed to cure “orphan diseases” have been very expensive ($500K to $2 million). But that’s because the orphan disease population receiving the treatment is so small.

Consider aging. This is a “disease” that all 8 billion+ humans on Earth have in common. What happens if we develop a gene therapy for billions of people? Turns out we have an example of that, it’s called the Covid mRNA vaccines.

Putting aside any controversy for the Covid vaccine itself, mRNA vaccines are a gene therapy that were manufactured for ~ $1 to $2 per dose because of the massive scale.

When producing at the scale of billions, prices drop toward zero.

And we have one advantage: all 8 billion+ people on Earth have the same biology and the same disease of aging.

Longevity for all may be achievable by 2040. I personally believe longevity is the greatest gift we can offer to humanity, and the world’s biggest business opportunity.

Reflecting on the future of AI and longevity reinforces the transformative era we are in. From the potential to redefine humanity’s purpose, to reshaping education, we are entering a period of democratization that’s so universal it has immense possibilities.

I invite you to build it.

Until next time,
Peter