Instant global communication, just like the local transition from fossil fuels, has gone unnoticed by the teenager. For her both are simply mundane features of a world that is taken for granted. The slow elimination of her father’s profession will feel no diferent.
Peter
Addressing a large industry event in San Antonio, Peter is in ebullient mood. Sixty this year, he has the energy of a much younger man – primarily as a result of regular injections of human growth hormone. These days he takes great pride in two things: the baseball team he owns and making ever more bullish statements about the future of technology.
His expertise and legitimacy in the field comes from having founded a company acquired by one of the digital giants at the turn of the century, and today he is delivering a speech as a favour for a friend. He quickly shifts the conversation to his preferred topic: artificial intelligence and the future of jobs:
‘The first two trillion-dollar company will be Amazon, no question. Bezos won’t be the first trillionaire, but he ’ll do fine. Who comes after? SpaceX? I don’t think so, we ’ve had that technology for seventy years, and soon everyone will be doing it – but good luck to Elon. No, the first trillionaire will come from creating AI. Imagine … it is going to be as if you were doing accountancy in Victorian England and suddenly a rival has a laptop with a quad-core processor – they wipe you out. And jobs? Once that technology is rolled out most people – and this doesn’t make me happy to say it – will be superfluous … unnecessary.’
Introduction
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