Capitalist Investor

Will AI Steal Your Job or Create New Ones? The Future of Work and Automation, Ep. 321

• Strategic Wealth Partners

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Join Tony and Derek on this episode of the Capitalist Investor as they dive into the world of automation and AI, exploring whether technology is really stealing jobs or unlocking new opportunities for workers everywhere. They break down which jobs are most at risk, which ones are likely safe, and how AI could even create entirely new roles that haven't existed before. The conversation spans everything from blue-collar construction sites to white-collar fields like tax prep and engineering, plus the wild card of how an aging workforce fits into the future of work.

Whether you're worried about robots replacing your career or curious about how to invest in the AI revolution, this episode sheds light on the practical impacts of automation and what we all might expect in the decade ahead. Don't miss this thought-provoking discussion about reskilling, shifting job markets, and the investment opportunities in the AI boom!

Join us today as we talk about automation. And is it stealing your job or is it actually creating new opportunities? We're going to jump in. We're going to explore the future of work and how we need to reskill to prepare for the world tomorrow. All right, Tony, how you doing, man? Good to have you back. Good, man, good. I'm back in the saddle. I'm not on assignment anymore. Two long weeks without you. I know. I heard the doves crying. It's okay, it's okay. I'm back. I'm back. Awesome. Yeah. So today we're going to talk about the future of automation, AKA AI, and how that is going to reshape our world. And I think we're going to focus more on jobs. You know, it could, it's gonna, it's gonna factor in a lot of different areas, right? But let's talk about, like, how are, how are jobs? And we've talked about this, like, you know, this is just gonna evolve into a Terminator movie, right? We, if you've been listening to us, we've talked about this. This is the, the blanket statement, like they're just gonna overthink us and take us over, right? Just like, like Terminator. But here's the, you know, here's the thing. So as AI is coming into a fold, it's still in its infancy. So could we be three months, three months or you know, three months, three years, 30 more years away from AI completely taking over everything. Things are moving very fast, and that's just technology today. But, you know, I want to focus on how is it affecting jobs? Like what jobs are being lost, what jobs are being gained. And then some wild cards, right? Like, because I believe Goldman Sachs came out and said that, you know, AI could easily displace 300 million jobs or 25% of the global workforce in the next, you know, 10ish years, plus or minus. But then I saw that the World Economic Forum said it can create 100 million jobs. So this is all true. So let's talk about, let's kind of talk about like the impact on jobs. Let's talk about the displacement when it comes. When I start thinking about the jobs that could be lost is. And I struggle with this, but like, think about some of the white collar jobs I'm going to start there. Not even the blue collar jobs. Because like, yeah, I was doing, I was driving down the street today and I saw like a new house and I'm like, man, when's AI going to take. I literally thought about that because I Was thinking about this, this episode as we were, as I was driving in and I'm like, how are they going to do that? I mean you see these houses being built out of like, you know, like mortar because you get the, you know, like these 3D printed houses and they're like a thousand square foot and they're like layers of concrete and that's it. How long are those gonna last? You know, like I having a hard time seeing a robot coming in and you know, laying blocks and pouring concrete and leveling it and putting the electrical in and putting the plumbing in and putting up cabinets. Like can they help a person and maybe displace one or two people doing that? Maybe, but. But not right now. So I actually feel like as much as blue collar work could be do like the specialized blue collar work I think is safe because we have to build data centers to power the AI. So therefore electricians, plumbers, construction people, like those are going to be in demand for the next decade. But I take a look at white collar jobs like taxes, I don't know, I mean some people have an easy tax return and yeah, I could see it. It takes people 5, 10, 20 minutes sometimes because they got a W2 and that's it. There's nothing else going on. But then you get a, like a business owner who's got write offs and different tax rates and all this different stuff for their business, their personal. And so I don't know, there's that, you know, we had that episode like can financial advisors be taken over with, with that. And I said, well my biggest, again, I'm more of a doomsday person. I'm like, what if they just swing, you know, swing the market in a direction and all the money goes to one person or one entity or something. How do you get that back? How do you hit the rewind button? It's a real issue. Yeah. And then doctors. Well, I think AI is helping. You know, you can see that today they are, they're helping diagnose people very, very quickly. But you know, can a robot go in and precisely open somebody up and make a decision? Because I'm pretty sure, you know, if I'm in surgery and they're operating on my heart and your heart, not everything's the same in there. That's what I'm gonna say. Right. So what are your thoughts, Steve? Yeah, so I mean you hit on, you hit on a bunch there, you know, just as you mentioned, houses and white collar job. I mean what about like architects? Like what's like that that seems to be closer, you know, where you could just say, hey, you know, go to Pulte's website and you know, I like this aspect of this house and that aspect of this house. You know, Design me a 3,000 square foot house with a finished basement to fit on this piece of land. And I think in relatively short order, I think it's going to be able to do that. Yeah. Like, hey, and I want, I want a mini bar over here, I want the fridge over here. And I bet you within a couple minutes they're going to refigure the, the, the kitchen for you. Yep. Right. I was actually, this is a little off topic, but you know, you said we're going to devolve into Terminator pretty quick, so we might as well just get there right now. But they were talking about the neural link, you know, and you know, basically they were, they, oh, it was your boy Tucker Carlson, he had a guest on. And he was saying, you know, if you can implant a neuralink into someone, you know, who's to say that, that you couldn't like project like false images into their mind, you know? Yeah. Basically controlling their mind. And that's just one step away from Skynet. Right. Because if that ship gets hooked up to the Internet like that, that Skynet right there. Yeah. So it's is definitely a slippery slope. You know, I could easily see, you know, taxes are always going to be complicated, it seems, you know, there's more tax talk right now. Well, like think about engineers, you know, and we were talking to our engineer before this. You know, it's like, hey, what happened, you know, 70 years ago when we actually had, didn't have plows. Right. Plowing fields that displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Right, right. Or, or maybe thousands of people. I don't know. Like now we just have a tractor and it runs all day and it does the work of 50 people. Right, right. In hours. Engineering. As I was coming up through engineering, like I, I learned how to construct a building and it's very complicated. And when they built like the Empire State Building, there were no computers. Right. So you had, you literally had three to four floors of hundreds of engineers on each floor doing calculations to build that building. When I was in school, like I learned that way and it's not fun, it's complicated. And now they make engineering software where two people can probably design the same building in a week. Yep. Right. Where it took, I don't know, like three years to develop the, you know, to create the Empire State Building with, with hundreds of engineers. But we've made it through that. Right? So that, that's the thing. You know, it's many talk about, you know, reskilling, you know, the entire population. This is just kind of what happens through time. You know, it's the, it's the old buggy whip arguments. Right. You don't need buggy whip manufacturers anymore. You know, there's probably a dozen of those sold every year. You know, just look at the, the difference in the world between, you know, like when, even when we were growing up, like as kids, you know, say like the early 90s, you know, there was no Internet. Yeah. There was. Pagers were a big thing. Pagers and then a flip phone and. And then it took off from there. So, you know, even back then, new. There was so much more manufacturing even still in the early 90s than we have now. So, you know, we, we adapt, you know, humans adapt to, to the environment. It is definitely going to require a shifting of the skilled workers, I think. But at the same time, it should also, you know, provide benefits. Yeah, well, I mean, think about some of the jobs that are gained. Right? So, you know, AI engineers like people that. I don't think we can have the computers. Build the computers. That'd be bad. Right, but you have to have people to create the computers. You need people to create the data centers. Again, unless we can create robots that are fully functional that can put up rebar and pour concrete and throw. I mean, maybe they do exist. I just don't know about it. Right. But these are some of the things that, like it takes a human mind to work around different situations because not. You know, I've been on construction sites before when I was co oping as an engineer and things pop up, man. Things don't really go to plan. Usually on a construction site, things need to be quickly dealt with and, and you move on. Right. And you build around it or you reconfigure the data centers. You know, building that stuff like the electricians and the plumbers and those are like, those are hard, you know, technical, technical skills. Right. To building all that. I do like your take on the, on the architect though. Like, that does seem like something that, I mean, I think I have an app now. I can take a picture of this room and look and it can tell me what the room looks like with a picture and a different color wall. Right. So, but also like, what about AI ethic officer again? How far are we going to let a robot take over? Right? Who's going to be there as the Checks and balance. And it's got to be a human saying, hey, this don't look right or we should be concerned about how this thing's evolving. Right. So but you know, and then kind of, is there any jobs that you think could pop out of that, out. Of like the AI Ethics officer? Well, no, not that one. Just like any other, I kind of named like three jobs that are kind of either going to be there or safe in this environment. Yep. So it's not going to run itself. So, you know, I always thought of, you know, because a long, long time ago I worked for like a packaging company and it got to go in some of these huge automation facilities like the Amazons of the world. And just the, you know, just the technology change in, you know, the three or four years that I was there, it was remarkable. You know, it's went from, you know, a bunch of people, you know, manually packing boxes to, you know, a fully automated system where, you know, everything was picked, filled table, taped up and shipped out. The throughput would go up 50x just by installing the automation. But you talk about white collar jobs at that time that machinery went down not often, but enough where you needed a full time person to be able to run the system. You obviously have to train people who are working on the line. It's just more of a shifting of skills versus and to that point it's fairly exciting. Right. You don't just have humans just mindlessly, you know, packing boxes. Right. You have, you have skilled employees. So. Yeah. Well, I mean, think about like the wild cards on this. That's kind of where my mind was going with some of this is that we do have an olding, an aging population that is exiting the workforce and it's actually going to be difficult to replace them right now. Yep. So I think that eats into that number of, you know, everyone being displaced. Like we're actually being displaced because. And actually I don't know if it's a displacement, I don't know how to really word it, but like people are exiting and no one's coming in. Like there's voids. So maybe AI is needed. I'm, I'm going to try and be positive on this segment. All right, so maybe AI is needed because of our aging population leaving and exiting the workforce. That's one thing we were talking about displacement. You know, I'll just use that example of, you know, we had 100 people plowing a field 70 years ago or whatever and now a tractor and three tractors and three operators in those tractors. Now take care of those 150 to 100 people. But those. What did those other 50 people go and do? They wanted something else. So maybe, maybe it's something where, you know, I. The people that work in AI do make a lot of money, and they're going to need help doing that. And maybe that is sort of the funnel of new revenue sources. And the people that are displaced are now maybe just making the world better, you know, because maybe they're, you know, opening more restaurants or opening more entertainment. I mean, maybe you could even take a look and call AI deflationary, right? Help bring down the cost of things so that everything's not as expensive. I know deflation is normally bad for the economy, but maybe it won't be in this realm. We can't just have things. I mean, things have gone up historically forever. But if things are done more quickly, more efficiently, maybe there is a positive for the deflationary type of thing. But again, we need people to work so that they can buy things. So I don't know how this evolution of displacement is really going to play out, but I'm sure it will open an area that you and I, or even the Internet can't even think of right now. It, it really is. It, it. It gets, it dives. We. You quickly move to a philosophical debate here, right? Because who's to say that this is what we're. We're meant to do, right? You know, everyone basically working, you know, 40, 50, 60 hours a week. You know, it could. The, you know, AI and the technological advances associated with it could lead to a better society, right? Maybe, maybe people work 30 hours a week instead of 40 to 50. You know, you can see the, the. Better work life balance. Exactly. Yeah. And that's where I was kind of going with, like, the displacement, you know, like if people are either being displaced permanently or partially, like, you know, everyone's all, you know, burnt out and work too much, all this stuff, like, maybe. That helps for sure. The mental psyche of everybody. Maybe. Yeah, it's stuff like that's already, you know, made, you know, taking care of your kids easier or, you know, cleaning your house easier. Like, you know, I haven't vacuumed my, my floor in, you know, seven years now. I've had those Irobot vacuum cleaners and now Zumbas. What do they call Roomba? Roomba. Roomba. Zumba was the exercise class from the 90s. Yeah. I mean, the one, the most recent one that I got is ridiculous. It's a mop and a vacuum in one it works perfectly. And you can control it from your phone. You just say, hey. And you can. It maps your whole house so you can say, hey. You know, my kids made a mess under the kitchen table. It wheels, it goes right over there, vacuums up, then it mops, and then it goes home. And then it empties its bin just in the difference between that one and the first iRobot that I had that would just basically bounce around between the walls. It's crazy. You know, you just start to do the math on that stuff and it, you know, you get to a pretty crazy place pretty quick. The AI videos, right? It seems like AI videos have been out for a short time, you know, maybe like under two years in the mainstream. And I, I saw, I just saw yesterday actually some of the, the, the new AI videos. I think it was from Google. They. It's. It's basically indistinguishable now. You know, in, in five years, it will definitely be indistinguishable. It's going to be like, like you. You see like a human being and they just look real. Yeah, like an AI video looks completely real. And, and that's just, you know, since we've seen them in the last couple years, what's that going to look like in, in five, 10 years? You know, so. And what, and what. What jobs will that replace and what jobs will, you know, will that create? Right, right. You know, if you've seen, you've seen a shift, right? A lot of people don't watch TV anymore. They just watch YouTube, they watch podcasts. You know, I don't even know if I don't. I've never been a big moviegoer, but I don't think many people go to the movies anymore. They don't even make movies. Movies that often anymore. There's not, there's not three or four or five different movies being created every week. The new. Oh, new movies coming out this week. Like, new movies coming out this month. Great. Like, one's coming out this month. Let's go watch it. Right? I don't know. It's just again, there's been, there's been a cultural shift after, after Covid and AI is, is starting to really develop and it'll be interesting to watch. But at this point, you know, like, I think as an investor kind of bringing us back into like, investing and stuff. Like, you know, the chips are. The are. Is the engine and who's making the chips and how is, how are they integrating the chips? So you got the. Microsoft's of the world who are integrating the chips. But then you got the manufacturers, like AMD and Video Taiwan, Semi. You know, those people, those companies are, you know, they're creating the actual hardware. How did. Now. And then you get, like, the. The Googles and the Microsofts who are implementing, you know, the software side of it. So that's the best way to play it now. Because there's no firm that's out there doing AI Ethics Officer. You know, like, not yet, but that's. But that makes a lot of sense, you know, like, hey, somebody watch this robot so it doesn't destroy us. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like college football right now. It's the wild west out there. Not many rules, not many people enforcing them. So, yeah, we'll just see what happens. All right, man, well, take us home. Yeah. Well, good stuff this week. If you guys have any questions, comments, show ideas, hit us up@infowpconnect.com and we'll talk to you next week. The opinions expressed in the podcast are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any investment, legal, financial, or tax strategy. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. Please consult a qualified professional about your individual needs.