AI AGENTS EMERGENCY DEBATE: These Jobs Won't Exist In 24 Months! Containment Has Failed, We Must Prepare For What's Coming!

Daniel Priestley (0:00)

I think a lot of people don't realize how massive the positive impact AI is going to have on their life.

Bret Weinstein (0:05)

Well, I would argue that the idea that this AI disruption doesn't lead us to human catastrophe is optimistic. For example, people are going to be unemployed in huge numbers.

Steven Bartlett (0:15)

You agree with that, don't you?

Amjad Masad (0:16)

Yes. If your job is as routine as it comes, it's gone in the next couple of years, but it's going to create new opportunities for wealth creation.

Bret Weinstein (0:25)

Let me put it to you this way. We've created a new species and nobody on earth can predict what's going to happen.

SPEAKER_5 (0:32)

We are joined by three leading voices to debate the most disruptive shift in human history, the rise of AI. They're answering the questions you're most scared about.

Amjad Masad (0:41)

This technology is going to get so much more powerful. Yes, we're going to go through a period of disruption, but at the other end, we're going to create a fair world. It's enabling people to run their businesses, make a lot of money.

Daniel Priestley (0:51)

You can solve meaningful problems such as the breakthroughs in global healthcare and education will be phenomenal. And you can live an incredibly fulfilling existence.

Bret Weinstein (0:59)

Well, I would just say on that front, this has always been a fantasy of technologists to do marvelous things with our spare time, but we end up doom scrolling.

Steven Bartlett (1:06)

Loneliness epidemic.

Bret Weinstein (1:07)

Right, following birth rates. So the potential for good here is infinite, and the potential for bad is 10 times. For example, there's war, undetectable, deep fakes and scams. So people don't understand how many different ways they are going to be robbed.

Amjad Masad (1:20)

Look, I don't think blaming technology for all of it is the right thing. All these issues, they're already here.

Steven Bartlett (1:26)

We're all fathers here. So what are you saying to your children?

Amjad Masad (1:29)

Well first of all...

Steven Bartlett (1:39)

The reason why I wanted to have this conversation with all of you is because the subject matter of AI, but more specifically AI agents, has occupied my free time for several weeks in a row. And actually, Amjad, when I started using Replit, for me, it was a paradigm shift. There was two paradigm shifts in a row that happened about a week apart. ChatGPT released their image generation model where you could create any image. It was incredibly detailed with text and all those things. That was a huge paradigm shift. And then in the same week, I finally gave in to try and figure out what this term AI agent was, that I was hearing all over the internet. I heard VibeCoding, I heard AI agent. I was like, I will give it a shot. And when I used Replit, 20 minutes in to using Replit, my mind was blown. And I think that night I stayed up till 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning. For anyone that doesn't know, Replit is a piece of software that allows you to create software. And pretty much any software you want. So someone like me with absolutely no coding skills was able to build a website, build in Stripe, take payment, integrate AI into my website, add Google login to the front of my website, and do it within minutes. I then got the piece of software that I had built with no coding skills, sent it to my friends, and one of my friends put his credit card in and paid. So I just launched a SaaS company with no coding skills.

To demonstrate an AI agent in a very simple way, I used an online AI agent called Operator to order us all some water from a CVS around the corner. The AI agent did everything, end to end, and people will be watching it on the screen. They put my credit card details in, it picked the water for me, it gave the person a tip, it put some delivery notes in. At some point, a guy is going to walk in. He has not interacted with a human. He has interacted with my AI agent. The reason I use this as an example is, again, it was a paradigm shift moment for me when I heard about agents about a month ago, and I went on and I ordered a bottle of electrolytes. And when my doorbell rang, I freaked out. I freaked out. But Amjad, who are you and what are you doing?

Amjad Masad (3:46)

So I started programming at a very young age. You know, I built my first business when I was a teenager. I used to go to internet cafes and program there. And I realized that they don't have software to manage the business. I was like, oh, why didn't you create accounts? Why don't you have a server? It took me two years to build that piece of software. And that sort of embedded in my mind this idea that, hey, like, you know, there's a lot of people in the world with really amazing ideas, especially in the context where they live in, that allows them to build businesses. However, the main source of friction between an idea and software, or call it an idea and wealth creation, is infrastructure, is physical infrastructure, is meaning a computer in front of you, it is an internet connection, it is the set of tools and skills that you need to build that. If we make it so that anyone who has ideas, who wants to solve problems will be able to do it. I mean, imagine the kind of world that we could live in where no one can be… Anyone who has merit, anyone who can think clearly, anyone who can generate a lot of ideas can generate wealth. That's an amazing world to live in, right? Anywhere in the world. So with Replit, the company that I started in 2016, the idea was like, okay, coding is difficult. How do we solve coding? And we built every part of the process, the hosting, the code editor.