If millions of jobs disappear overnight it means AI is amazingly good, which means people will also have AI empowerment on a whole new level as open source trails companies by 1-2 years. Everyone will just order their AI "take care of my needs", maybe work along with it. You got to agree that we already have some amazing open models and they are only getting better - that empowerment will remain with us in times of need.
"Companies employing people" will be replaced by "people employing AI". Open models are free, small, fast, trainable and easy to use. They capture 90% of the value at 10% the cost, and are private.
"Companies employing people" getting replaced by anything is pretty dangerous in an economic system where employment is synonymous with having food and shelter. It won't matter that AI could help me keep a to-do list or generate pretty videos if I don't have a job or income.
What we're looking at is a massive decrease in the relative economic value of the average human's work. If the economic value of a hundred people is less than what the company can produce with a single human operator running AI models, then those 100 people are economically worthless, and don't get to eat.
We drastically need to tax the usage of AI models on the huge windfall they're about to create for their operators, and use that to fund universal basic income for those displaced. Generally speaking, as automation and wealth disparity skyrocket, UBI will be required to maintain any semblance of the society we currently have. I am incredibly pessimistic about the chances of that happening in any real way though.
"Companies employing people" will be replaced by "people employing AI". Open models are free, small, fast, trainable and easy to use. They capture 90% of the value at 10% the cost, and are private.