The future I'm building towards: AI is coming for all of us.

I can't remember the last day I went without hearing the word AI.

There is significant hype around it for legitimate reasons, but right now most of it is noise.

Executives parroting the same shit to try and differentiate - the irony is that they all sound the same.

Surface-level shiny object syndrome.

What truly concerns me about AI is that we're no longer the smartest thing in our universe anymore.

And our logic and intellect is what has kept us on top of the food chain for millenia.

Evolving past primal instincts and impulses towards rationality, reason and logic is our highest form.

When we think of ourselves, we like to think of our most rational and logical selves.

That 'rational' self is mostly governed by the pre-frontal cortex, the part of our brains just behind the forehead.

Our higher reasoning, decision-making and executive functions are stored in here and is the latest in our evolutionary developments as human beings.

If corporations wanted to extract the most value out of us as people (and they do), they would be taking the pre-frontal cortex out of us and discarding the rest.

Unfortunately the eggheads at OpenAI, Anthropic and co have done exactly that with AI.

They have:

• taken our highest cognitive function,
• removed human limitations from it - energy, emotional bias
• fed it the world's information to learn
• and will eventually replace human knowledge productivity at a fraction of the cost.

'Knowledge Work' was a term coined by Peter Drucker in the 50's to describe what most of us do today - white-collar information-based work.

Most knowledge work is logic-based with a limited set of decisions that need to be factored in: admin, finance, law etc. Sales could be considered Knowledge Work.

These logical processes can now be learnt by machines with:

• less margin of error
• significantly less downtime
• significantly less cost

And if you're an executive whose KPI's are defined by operational efficiencies and profitability, getting more work done for less money and risk is compelling.

There are plenty of private equity firms that:

• buy businesses,
• gut them to save operational costs - usually in labour
• and then flip them at a much higher value or keep them

A recent example would be Broadcom and VMWare.

2900 jobs were immediately cut from VMWare post-acquisition to save costs and remove double-ups in roles.

They've absolutely gutted their bottom 80% of customers with exorbitant licensing fees and took their top 20% of customers direct.

Fast-forward 5-10 years from now when the real AI winners come out with their operational automation applications and digitised processes.

Think of all the corporations whose leaders will be licking their lips at the premise of replacing thousands of manual processes and FTEs with applications that don't:

• need sick or annual leave
• have a 'bad day' or 'aren't feeling it today'
• raise HR complaints about pay or conditions

The already struggling middle-class will be decimated.

The haves and have-nots will be defined by their ability to adapt to AI.

Millions will be displaced without employment opportunities.

And I expect the social fabric to tear wide open as millions go into survival mode and fight for what's left.

Yikes, how long have we got?

Not long. 5-10 years.

A German kid called Leopold Aschenbrenner has released a significant essay called 'Situational Awareness' based on his experience at OpenAI as part of their 'Superalignment' team.

This Superalignment team was supposed to be the part of the OpenAI business that regulated the AI from becoming dangerous.

Most of the leaders in that part of OpenAI's business have left, citing they weren't given the promised resources by Sam Altman and concerned they were ineffective as a team. Yikes!

The essay is an in-depth look at AI over the next decade, with forecasts on required resources, exponential computational growth, risks and more.

The essay is heavy read and I haven't read it all yet, but there are 2 diagrams that I find pretty compelling.

The first one is that currently the effective intelligence of GPT-4 is one of a smart high-schooler.

Based on current trajectories of learning progress and required compute AI could be capable of engineering itself by 2028.

This means a higher intellectual force that can self-develop with minimal human interference.

The next diagram is also scary - ChatGPT-4 is out-performing most humans on standardised tests:

Something that I recently learnt about copywriting is that you should write at a 6th grade level to ensure its comprehended by the most people.

Most news is written and read at a similar level to engage most of its viewership.

So if AI is already smarter than most high-schoolers,

and the lowest common intellectual denominator for society is a primary-school level,

what does that say about the current state of humans vs AI already?!

If its already smarter than most of us today, imagine how irrelevant we are going to feel tomorrow?

This is like that moment when sons beat their dads at arm-wrestling - he ain't the man anymore!

And neither are we.

Oh dear - how do we survive?

Adapt or die. This is nature's way.

The 2 main ways to dodge the tremendous force of AI is to:

1 - Get behind AI: be part of the people wielding it

Thankfully for most of us in tech sales our jobs are safe and will likely be augmented by AI.

I've heard this line a lot: "your job won't be taken over by AI, it will be taken by someone using AI."

I believe it - productivity per person will skyrocket with the right competence, needing less people to get the same job done.

Being in the Tech sector and 'part of the problem' keeps us safe to a degree because we're the ones 'pointing the gun'.

I believe its riskier to be an Engineer than a Salesperson in tech sales right now because:

• most Technical knowledge is logic & facts that can be replicated with machines
• eventually the Tech will take care of itself e.g. self-write and heal
• the Tech will integrate easier than ever with APIs and common platforms

I see AI agents that know product knowledge in-depth and can answer common questions replacing a lot of SEs,

with the human element of sales still run by Account Managers/BDMs.

Soft skills like EQ, communication & leadership compound in value,

Technical skills don't.

I've understood this for years and is one of the core reasons why I built Tech Sales Academy.

I expect the demand for sales, people & soft skills to skyrocket in the near future as a result of AI and am positioning myself appropriately for it.

I'd suggest you do the same and upskill for the future ahead.

If you need help - you know where to find me :)

2 - Go where AI can't

AI has physical limitations that will be taken over by robotics in the near future.

This means jobs close to the human experience or require complex physical work are largely unaffected by AI for the time being.

Jobs like:

• trades,
• nursing & healthcare,
• performing arts

are useful alternatives to knowledge work but require the exchange of time for money,

which is what you must fundamentally avoid to build wealth and personal freedom.

Unless you own those businesses with AI assisting in the operations - now there's some money!

In summary

AI is coming for us all:

• It's already smarter than most of us and the only thing holding it back from productivity dominance is learning how to do the jobs it will replace.
• That's being worked on right now by all the major AI companies and we will see those changes arise in the next decade.
• Corporations will not hesitate to cull jobs in favour of AI and we must plan our careers appropriately to survive.

I'm getting ahead of the curve by starting a business so I can't be made redundant by AI,

and focussing on teaching the most valuable skills in the post-AI world.

If you want to get ahead too I can help with Tech Sales OS.

On a more positive note:

I am now opening up Tech Sales Academy to be a free community, with the option to purchase Tech Sales OS and future content.

I'm still putting the finishing touches on it, but it's got:

8+ hours of free Tech Sales content - I have put up the first version of Tech Sales OS up as free content in the community.

It's 8 hours of podcast-style content where I talk through the main lessons and concepts of Tech Sales OS.

I believe that if you like what I'm teaching and talking about, then you'll be happy to get the polished version with lots more value in it!

All of my personal performance content - all 12 of my personal performance systems that I've detailed in previous newsletters are now up in the Life School section.

These will evolve into video lessons in time with lots more tools on personal transformation!

A weekly free Q+A session - come hang out and chat with me!

Starting next week I'll be live for an hour on Zoom answering any questions you have about Tech Sales and personal performance.

If you purchase Tech Sales OS there is a members-only Q&A session where we can go deeper on questions and I give you the real secrets to winning at Tech Sales ??

I'm also in the community every day answering any questions you have.

You can sign up for free right now by following this link.

It's still a work-in-progress but there's lots of great stuff there to enjoy!

Once I get settled into Thailand next month I'm going to double-down on the content and really build community.

It will be nothing else you've ever seen on the internet - you have my word ??