AI is taking over human jobs, gradually at first, but abruptly as the technology becomes more capable. Today AI is beginning to supplement human tasks allowing for humans to complete more work in less time, but the next phase will be full replacement of human jobs in many scenarios. This raises a lot of questions about the future of work and how our current economy and purpose of human life will evolve.

As long as we can remember, as humans we've served our purpose by working, completing tasks, innovating, inventing things, and doing manual labor. As we approach technological singularity we must prepare for this to change drastically. In simple terms, technological singularity is the moment when technology becomes smarter and more capable than humans, not only in the sense of AI and computing power out-performing the human brain, but also for robotics to become more physically capable than humans. The combination of these two technological advancements changes the course of human evolution because we no longer need to rely on human labor to keep our industries and economy advancing forward.

In theory, a world where robots and AI do all of the hard work sounds like a utopian future. It will likely start out as fairly expensive for the upper class who can afford these luxuries but it shouldn't take long before we have robots building robots, bringing the cost down exponentially and every human having the ability to own their own robot (or a fleet of robots) who do every bit of manual work they don't want to do, while having AI tools doing all of the hard thinking. This leaves humans with a lot of free time, but significantly less ability to earn money because robots and AI are taking over the workforce.

Obviously we can't allow for AI and robotics to replace human workers if we don't have a plan for how to navigate the economic impact of such changes. It's great if we don't have to work, but how will we earn money? How will we buy the things we need? Both Elon Musk and Sam Altman (amongst many others) have suggested a tax be placed on businesses who use AI and/or robotics to replace human workers, and utilizing that tax to provide a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to the people.

The gut reaction many people have is that this is a bad idea and it will create a world of lazy people who don't want to do anything meaningful. I think it actually means the opposite, because the reality of today's world is that most people dislike the work they do, most people are unhappy, and most people are too busy trying to pay their bills that they never stand a chance at discovering their true passion or talent. By allowing robots and AI to takeover the tedious jobs of the world and essentially put production on auto-pilot, this allows all humans to have their basic needs met by the work of machines, and allows us to transition into a world where we can literally do what we want with our lives because a UBI can support our basic needs.

Does this mean there won't be any "bottom feeders" who decide to live off the system and never contribute anything? No, of course not, but those people exist today and always will. This doesn't change the fact that if everyone had to suddenly stop working tomorrow that a year from then we'd discover an exponential amount of hidden talent by enabling people to pursue their true passions. There's a big difference between pursuing your passion as a means to pay your bills VS being able to pursue it without any financial pressure, that's a source of innovation and human advancement we are yet to experience, but it's not far out on the horizon, it's just around the corner.

This seems alarming because technological singularity is a drastic change from the pace of our historic technical evolution, but it's actually no different than the path we've already been on, which has been inventing tools and machines that make our lives easier. We're just now at the final stages where we're releasing technology that doesn't just make our jobs and lives easier, it can now completely replace our need for performing most of the jobs that we've needed to keep the world operational. We will literally have robots that build robots, and those robots will do our farming, manufacturing, cooking, delivering, construction, education, etc. The list is endless because once machines are more capable than humans, there simply is no limit.

This won't all happen overnight, but it will move quickly. We'll first see jobs that require thinking, researching, and writing be replaced by AI. Think about content creation, legal research, healthcare diagnosis, etc. These roles will quickly be performed better by AI than humans, which means we don't only want to have the option of utilizing these new technologies, but we'll strongly prefer them because the results and accuracy of their work will be far superior. But again, we can't take people's jobs away without supplementing their income somehow, and that's why UBI is such an important topic.

I think the simple way to view the future is to imagine a world where being born does not mean you're obligated to work and pay taxes just to survive. This sounds like an unfair advantage for future generations but really the way they'll view it is that we've had very unfair lives before them. The notion that we're born into a life we didn't choose and then have no choice but to work for survival is already quite unfair, and given we've invented machines and tools that can produce the food, services, and shelter that we need at such a low cost, we should be able to benefit from these advancements and that's what a future UBI system can potentially provide.

This doesn't mean we're headed toward a world where everyone has the same things and no one can work hard to earn more. That's why the future looks bright because UBI just raises everyone's base standard of living. It ensures that people will be able to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, healthcare, and shelter, but will still have the option of finding other sources of income and maintaining a strong sense of our capitalistic society. We can (and likely will) have the best of both worlds.

Here's one way to think about it, we already provide Section 8 housing and food stamps to low income families, so we're already utilizing tax dollars to supplement people's lifestyles, it's just that the introduction of robotics and AI worker replacements will allow us to drastically expand these public offerings.

I've had many questions in regards to how the logistics of UBI would work, and this week I think we saw the first step toward answering those questions when the CEO of Lattice announced that they're leading the way in "responsible employment of AI".

Sarah Franklin, CEO of Lattice said on LinkedIn "Within Lattice's people platform, AI employees will be securely onboarded, trained, and assigned goals, performance metrics, appropriate systems access, and even a manager."

I think the key words here are "performance metrics" because this means they're building a system that will allow for AI workers to be measured against their human counterparts, which from where I'm sitting sounds like the infrastructure necessary to begin tracking and assessing AI workers and their value as it pertains to an "AI Worker Tax" which would be used to fund the UBI program.

If I had to guess, I'd imagine platforms like Lattice will integrate into HR platforms like Trinet and Rippling so together they'll be able to assess the output of the AI worker and calculate and submit tax payments based on those metrics.

I could be wrong, but based on the CEO's reaction to my comment I think I'm close to calling this one correctly.


Sarah also said in their press release, "I am spending a lot of time connecting with and learning from members of academia and policy, such as Business Higher Education Forum (BHEF), HR Policy Association (HRPA) and various universities. The partnership between business, academia and policy will need to be strong as the workforce of the future takes shape. I’m heading to D.C. in September to speak at the HRPA’s 2024 Washington Policy Conference to discuss workforce policy in the age of AI, and will continue to have Lattice lead in this very important conversation."

Pay close attention to the fact that she's already working with policy makers and planning trips to Washington (further validating my theory). This may blow your mind and it may sound unbelievable, but I assure you there's no path forward where some form of this does not become a reality.

Technological advancement is one thing that certainly cannot be stopped. It can be slowed down, and we've effectively done that with the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, which for those who don't know, basically means the US government has had the right to withhold inventions and technological and scientific innovations in secret if they pose threat to our current infrastructure.

This is likely why inventions like water powered cars were seen multiple times but then quickly disappeared from the public eye. It also likely means that when we see technology like ChatGPT enter the public sphere that it's already existed for 20+ years in secrecy and used only for government applications.

This explains why these innovations seem to come out of no where and why they advance so quickly, because we're receiving significantly delayed access to them. This is necessary to maintain our world operations but it does mean we should be prepared for leaps and bounds to be conquered in what seems like overnight successes, because we simply don't know all that already exists, and we never will outside of the few with high enough government security clearance.

If you're curious to learn more about how the government deploys these secret inventions, pay close attention to which companies from the private sector partner with DARPA or other government agencies. They usually receive financial grants (known as DARPA grants) and along with these grants likely come access to certain sciences and technologies.

If I had to bet, I'd say most certainly Elon Musk was given access to Nikola Tesla's famous missing trunks, which contained all of his research and inventions, and Musk was likely tasked with figuring them out and preparing to build a company that can deploy them. So yes, if you're one of the skeptics who thinks Tesla will fail because their batteries aren't up to par, I'd suggest you don't hold your breath because they likely already have a more advanced power solution prepared that just isn't ready to be released into the public quite yet.

This is a lot of information, and it's off the scope of my usual revenue growth topic but it's wildly relevant to all that we do and it will have a tremendous impact not only in the SaaS industry, but deeply into all aspects of our lives. So I suggest everyone takes some time to read into these subjects and be prepared for what's coming.

There's a reason the news is flooded with distractions, and it's most likely so that the ushering in of these new world infrastructures happens smoothly in the background while we're all distracted arguing about topics that aren't nearly as relevant or important.

As a closing to this article, I'll leave you with a list that outlines some of the major tech companies that have received DARPA grants, to give you a sense of how impactful the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 actually is to the innovations we see in this world.

This list includes but is not limited to; Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, NVIDIA, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell, Boeing, and Apple. While most of this information is available publicly, sometimes it's not so transparent.

For example, there's no evidence that Facebook has directly received grants from DARPA. However, there are some interesting connections and timing coincidences that have led to speculation about a relationship between Facebook and DARPA projects.

One notable point of speculation is the shutdown of DARPA's LifeLog project on February 4, 2004, the same day that Facebook was officially launched. The LifeLog project aimed to create a comprehensive database logging an individual's activities and interactions, which drew significant privacy concerns and was subsequently canceled, but turned out to be strikingly similar to what Facebook evolved into.

Additionally, Peter Thiel, Facebook's first major investor, has had connections with U.S. intelligence agencies. However, there's no concrete evidence suggesting that DARPA or other intelligence agencies had a direct role in the creation or funding of Facebook​. Thus, while there are intriguing connections and coincidences, there's no definitive proof of Facebook receiving DARPA grants, so we may never know the full truth.

While we clearly do our best to maintain a "free market" it's clear that's not exactly what we have and that companies with these government partnerships have clear advantages, which we generally see well reflected in their stock prices. It's not only DARPA, but also NASA, CERN, and others.

This is why it's become so controversial if politicians should be allowed to participate in the stock market, given they often have information about future science and technology that the public does not have access to. Makes sense why they're more successful at picking winning stocks than even the best of traders and analysts. Imagine if you knew Tesla is going to launch an alternative power source before the public knew, that's quite the insider advantage that can't even be proven given the information is classified.

That said, you can find out about these partnerships and grants after they're announced, just don't plan on coming across it in the media. You'll need to do your own digging to see what's really going on since the important stuff usually doesn't make it into the headlines, but instead is quietly published online (as required by law) but never announced or with attention drawn to it. The same can be said about most bills, policies, and legislation.

I hope this provides useful perspective and helps you to plan accordingly. At the very least, I hope it gets you thinking. The future looks bright, but it's also going to look a lot different than many realize.

Happy Selling,