I can't remember when I realized this, but I want to say it was less than five or ten years ago. Scared the crap out of me then, and still does whenever I think about it.

Companies only hire people because they can't do all the work themselves.

If every founder had 10,000 hands and brains they could assign to different tasks, there would be a minuscule fraction of the jobs we have today.

If you think about this for more than a few minutes, it starts to really mess with you, and you'll likely head down the same path I did.

1. (Nodding) Oh, I guess that's true...I guess somebody who can do all the work themselves wouldn't need to hire anybody...
2. (Logical) And I guess they shouldn't be required to hire people that they don't need. That would be weird...
3. (Quizzical) But aren't we telling millions of kids in high school and college that there are—and always will be—jobs waiting for them if they work hard?
4. (Nervous) So...who's actually guaranteeing that those jobs are there? Whose job is it to create jobs?
5. (Panic) Oh shit. Nobody. It's nobody's job to create jobs.

In other words, the only reason the current labor market (and our economy that's based on it) exist at all is because there's a group of founders/owners who need lots of help producing their goods and services.

They are not required by anyone to hire me or you to help them if they don't need that help. And the exact moment they can do the work themselves, they will, and not a second after.

So where does AI sit in all of this? ​

Everyone's currently obsessed with how much money is being spent/wasted on AI, as if it's the dumbest use of money ever.

But when you look at it in this "returning to natural state of doing their own work" framing, it's not stupid at all.

I sent my army of researchers to go figure out how much money is spent on knowledge work compensation in a year. The numbers are ridiculous. It's around $10 trillion in the US and $70 trillion worldwide.

That's annually.

As owners/founders, investing a few tens of trillions to be able to "just do it myself" suddenly looks pretty smart.

So basically, this entire pitch to young people that there will always be jobs after you graduate—which I somehow lived my entire life thinking was a fucking Human Law of Physics—is actually just a temporary side effect of early civilizations with bad technology.

• Big-L Labor...a side effect.
• Our whole ass economy that's based on us spending money earned by doing that labor...a side effect.

What the actual hell. I've known this for years now, but it stuns me every time I think about it.

Hopefully you can use this frame to better understand both AI and the forces that are pushing it. And as a prod to start thinking about what comes after.