Years before OpenAI’s ChatGPT showed the world what artificial general intelligence technology could do, venture capitalist Kai-Fu Lee saw the disruptive potential of AI in the labor market.
The chairman and chief executive officer of Sinovation Ventures predicted in 2017 that AI would be bigger than all of humanity’s previous technological revolutions combined, including electricity and the internet, adding that AI have much higher capabilities than humans.
“These are extraordinary things and we think they will be in every industry, perhaps replacing 50% of human jobs, creating huge amounts of wealth for humanity and eradicating poverty, ” Lee told CNBC at that time, then predict that will happen in the next 10 years.
Fast forward seven years at the Fortune Innovation forum in Hong Kong this past March, when he sat down with Luck editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell.
With his predicted timeline only three years away, she asked him if it was still correct and he replied: “It’s actually eerily accurate. People criticized me for being too aggressive in 2017, 2018, 2019 and I was a bit worried at the time. But when the AI generation comes along, I think everyone is on board and believes it’s the right pace.”
Lee added that AI will likely eliminate white-collar jobs faster than blue-collar jobs, describing this as a very important problem that some countries have begun to realize needs to be addressed.
When asked what parents should tell their children about their future careers, he said the first thing people should do is “stop the nonsense about kids using ChatGPT to cheat.”
Chatbots, which can generate natural language answers to queries on a variety of topics, are another tool, like Microsoft He argues that Word or Abode Photoshop.
When kids grow up, enter the workforce, and are evaluated on their job performance, bosses will look at the end result of their work, not whether they used ChatGPT or not. Google search, Lee continued.
“We need to encourage people to harness AI and use all the tools so they can be the best they can be,” he said. “Plus, it’s a great guide to what they might aspire to and what isn’t worth pursuing.”
To be sure, Lee still believes that there is something unique about us humans, saying that humans have souls while machines do not. “We have compassion and empathy. We have emotions and the capacity to love. We have the ability to connect with others and create trust and earn trust.”
In fact, he explains, more than any technical or business skill, the most important skill to have is being able to win the trust of others, which comes from authenticity, teamwork , share and have a high emotional index.
“Do I think AI can fake it? Correct. Do I think people will accept fake AI, at least for the next 50 years? Are not. That’s long enough for your child to survive and figure out their next step,” Lee said.
