Famed investor Vinod Khosla predicts free AI labor will lead to an era of few jobs and great abundance
- In today’s CEO Daily: Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell talks with investor Vinod Khosla about AI and the end of work.
- The big leadership story: Sam Altman aims to rewrite OpenAI’s speedy deal with the Pentagon.
- The markets: Markets in Europe stabilized while South Korea’s endured a double-digit rout.
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Good morning. What will life be like in 2040? Pretty awesome, according to famed Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla.
Khosla, one of tech’s most successful venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, put the first institutional money into OpenAI in 2019, investing $50 million at a $1 billion valuation. (Last week, OpenAI raised $110 billion at a $780 billion valuation.) Prior to founding his firm, Khosla Ventures, Khosla cofounded Sun Microsystems and Daisy Systems. He placed early bets in companies like Square and DoorDash, too, and has invested in energy startups like CommonWealth Fusion Systems.
All of this is to say, Khosla’s track record for accurately predicting the future has been pretty good. So I flew to his office in Menlo Park to better understand Khosla’s techno-optimistic outlook for the latest episode of my podcast, Fortune 500: Titans & Disruptors of Industry.
Make no mistake, Khosla believes AI will replace most jobs and even the need for colleges in the not-so-distant future. But he also believes that life will become much more abundant and affordable in key areas, including education, health care, and housing. He sees no reason that a 5-year-old today should ever need to look for a job.
I, of course, had many questions for Khosla about this: How does he think people will afford life without work, much less be happy and find purpose? What government policies are needed to ensure this utopian vision doesn’t turn into dystopia?
“Starting in about 2030—four years away—80% of all jobs will be capable of being done by an AI,” Khosla said. “What happens when all labor is free? $15 trillion of U.S. GDP is labor, and that $15 trillion will mostly go away. That’s a hugely deflationary economy. But the abundance of goods and services [thanks to AI and robotics] will be very, very large. Prices will be very, very low. I would suspect by 2040, $30,000—or maybe even $10,000—will buy much more than you can buy if you have a $100,000 income today.”
We discussed all of this and more on the episode. Subscribe (and if you like it, please leave a review!) to Fortune 500: Titans & Disruptors of Industry on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com