00:34:04 · Mark Jacobstein, Aditya Agarwal, Andrew Yang, Mark Jacobstein
[00:34:04] S3: Yeah. For sure. [00:34:08] S1: So, Andrew, let me ask you a question. So obviously, you talked about AI displacing jobs and you obviously talked about UBI. We've made a bunch of, well, not progress, but we now have a bunch more, a better understanding of what AI actually looks like. And we've kind of run some, I guess, small scalish experiments with UBI. But maybe like, give us like, what is your updated take right now on kind of like the impending effect of AI and also how should we be thinking about UBI as a way to alleviate it in the short or the long run? [00:34:41] S0: When I was running for president, I tended to hit blue collar examples more often. You know, I would talk about stores closing. I would talk about truck drivers. I would talk about call center workers, which is sort of on the border of blue collar, white collar. It turns out that I should have gone immediately to white collar, recent college grads, management consultants, law school grads, etcetera, etcetera. Like it turns out that that stuff- [00:35:09] S2: Running coders.
00:35:09 · Mark Jacobstein, Andrew Yang, Mark Jacobstein
[00:35:09] S2: Running coders. [00:35:10] S0: Yeah, yeah, coders. I mean, I'd been running around being like, Hey, coders, you're effed back in 2018, it would have seemed very far out because at that time coders were the most in demand. So my thinking in terms of the sequencing has changed a little bit, but directionally, still feel pretty confident that we're heading towards job killing tsunami for the average American. I mean, if you look at the labor force, the number one category of workers, clerical and administrative, which I daresay, most people are going to look at that and say, Oh, we can do a number on a lot of those jobs. By the way, for the curious, number two is retail. Number three is food service and food prep. Number four is trucking and transportation. And number five is manufacturing still, believe it or not. [00:35:59] S3: So
00:35:59 · Andrew Yang
[00:35:59] S0: feeling goodbad about my predictions on those levels. The UBI thing was always an oversimplification. Here's what I'm going to present that that will... I was sworn never to do this on the campaign trail because my campaign manager said, look, it's hard enough to get people on board with the magical Asian man from the future who wants to give everyone money. But when you start talking about a multivariate economy, everyone's head explodes, so never do it again. I think what we have to do is you have to build an arts and creativity economy, health and wellness economy, caring and nurturing, an education economy, and then reward different activities along these dimensions. And maybe you can't buy a Porsche on the wellness box, but you can live a fine life if all you're doing is like, doing physical therapy on grandma and then leading fitness classes and being personal trained. You can live lives that you're happy about, but that was always too complicated an idea for the political domain. I do think that's the only chance we have though, because the argument I make is, look, you got to acknowledge that Americans, sorry, humans are going to lose to machines if your measurement is capital efficiency. Like, if you take that as a given, then what the heck do people do? And then you think, okay, let's try and do more of the things that people want to do and that we need more of, that we can agree on in some way. And so you would need a combination of government and philanthropy to help build those systems. It wouldn't be that complicated. I mean, one of the things that I say to folks is, look, each of us uses half a dozen different currencies every day. We don't really think about it. I'm not even talking about Bitcoin and crypto and the rest of it. I'm talking about your reward points on Amex, your frequent flyer miles, your deli punch card, your Yelp status or whatever the hell it is. Like we have like all these categories. Like what we do need to do is actually make some of them robust enough to give people structure, purpose, fulfillment, community. So I think giving people money is a thing and I'm for it. And I'm very proud to have mainstreamed universal basic income. But I've always thought that was a foundation and you still need to build a house.
00:38:28 · Mark Jacobstein, Andrew Yang, Aditya Agarwal
[00:38:28] S2: I hope and assume that, hey. Hey, Yang. Where's my thousand bucks? Touches at least on some of this in addition to being a funny good read, which everybody should go by in February drops. Is that right? [00:38:40] S0: Yep. February 3, the alternate title was, hey, am I racist or are you Andrew Yang? Which I've also been asked. And it's like inside accounts of the last number of years. Hey, if Aditya goes- [00:38:56] S2: Just so you know, by the way, when I told Aditya we were gonna get you for a podcast, I think he was hoping that I meant Andrew Yang. No, [00:39:07] S1: that's a good one. I think probably my biggest fear with AI is that if the job... Listen, if you lose 15,000,000 jobs in the course of three years, that's revolution. That is very bad. Very bad things happen to political stability and the continuity of a country if you lose that many jobs without having a credible plan to giving people, I would say, pathways to both economic pathways, but also pathways towards dignity and status. Most people get a lot of value from being able to do something of value for themselves, their family, their community. And if you take that away, I think it's very hard for people to feel a sense of worth, what to do. So I worry about that a lot. So I do think that hopefully, if anything, if it's a fast takeoff, then I worry a lot. I think if it's a slow takeoff, maybe we have more time to think about this stuff. But we're heading for a very weird decade ahead. Yeah.
00:39:07 · Aditya Agarwal, Andrew Yang
[00:39:07] S1: that's a good one. I think probably my biggest fear with AI is that if the job... Listen, if you lose 15,000,000 jobs in the course of three years, that's revolution. That is very bad. Very bad things happen to political stability and the continuity of a country if you lose that many jobs without having a credible plan to giving people, I would say, pathways to both economic pathways, but also pathways towards dignity and status. Most people get a lot of value from being able to do something of value for themselves, their family, their community. And if you take that away, I think it's very hard for people to feel a sense of worth, what to do. So I worry about that a lot. So I do think that hopefully, if anything, if it's a fast takeoff, then I worry a lot. I think if it's a slow takeoff, maybe we have more time to think about this stuff. But we're heading for a very weird decade ahead. Yeah. [00:40:01] S0: Totally agree. Very, very concerned. I I think you're seeing, by the way, the beginnings of this revolution we speak of. You're seeing political violence. You're seeing flare ups. You're seeing deaths of despair. You're seeing assassinations and assassination attempts. So like the, anyone who thinks that that's off the table isn't paying any attention. I know I'm such an off listing guy, right? It's like, hey, I thought this was Come back to it.
00:40:01 · Andrew Yang, Aditya Agarwal
[00:40:01] S0: Totally agree. Very, very concerned. I I think you're seeing, by the way, the beginnings of this revolution we speak of. You're seeing political violence. You're seeing flare ups. You're seeing deaths of despair. You're seeing assassinations and assassination attempts. So like the, anyone who thinks that that's off the table isn't paying any attention. I know I'm such an off listing guy, right? It's like, hey, I thought this was Come back to it. [00:40:30] S1: The optimistic guy. No, but I really think that through this podcast series, get the chance to meet a lot of really interesting people. But it is rare to find somebody who has such a direct line between, hey, I see things in the world. And instead of commenting on it on X or complaining about it, I'm actually going go and do something about it. So this is inspirational. I try to highlight to my children people who would be interesting for them to think about. I will actually bring up your example in one of our family dinners this week. Because a lot of our recurring theme right now for my children, I think that in the age of AI, the biggest thing that we can hopefully impart to our children is a sense of agency, which is listen, these machines work for you. You have the ability to do more things, dream up more things. So I will talk to them about your career arc and what you have done, because I think agency is the currency that will be the most important one in an AI filled future. So Mark, I don't know if you have any final thoughts