{"id":302611,"date":"2025-12-07T04:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/302611\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T04:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:19:11","slug":"tech-investor-tells-rich-execs-that-ai-will-likely-cause-30-unemployment-10-annual-gdp-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/302611\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech investor tells rich execs that AI will likely cause 30+% unemployment, 10+% annual GDP growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Wall Street Journal\u2019s Tech Live Qatar this week, broadcast to an audience of executives and investors in Doha, Qatar, there was an interesting set of quotes from Sam Englebardt, a media and tech investor\u00a0who is a general partner at the venture capital firm Galaxy and a board member of the right-leaning radio broadcaster iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel). As quoted in Chip Cutter\u2019s \u201cAI job losses are coming, tech execs say. The question: who\u2019s most at risk?<\/a>\u201d published yesterday in the WSJ, Englebardt said the following about banking analysts, consultants, and legal analysts:<\/p>\n

They\u2019re toast\u2026.\u00a0Especially if you put a little time into understanding how to prompt these models, there\u2019s no human team that can compete with it\u2026.<\/p>\n

It seems likely to me that we are going to enter a period of 10-plus percent annual GDP growth, maybe higher, and 30-plus percent unemployment. We\u2019ve never seen anything like this.<\/p>\n

Englebardt is a smart guy (Oxford University, Harvard Law) <\/a>with access to a lot of money. So what is the smart money saying here?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0simple: Winter is coming for most US workers, especially whitecollar workers, while the wealthy will celebrate their great fortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the Great Depression the US unemployment rate peaked at 25%, the highest such rate ever recorded. Englebardt is saying AI unemployment will be worse than the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re wealthy he\u2019s saying things will be fabulous. The last year the US enjoyed 10+% annual GDP growth was during the Truman administration; 1950 saw so much growth due to increased production for the Korean War. The closest we\u2019ve come since then was 1965\u2019s\u00a08.5% growth rate, due in large part to increased production for the Vietnam War. Most of this earlier growth benefited the bulk of the US population. In contrast, early indications are that Englebardt\u2019s predicted 10+% annual GDP growth will go mostly to the wealthy.<\/p>\n

So really, Englebardt is saying for most workers it\u2019ll be worse than the Great Depression, but the wealthy will be better off than any time during the past 75 years.<\/p>\n

Englebardt is not the only smart person saying things like this. For example, Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton, sometimes called the \u201cgodfather of AI\u201d, said in an interview in September<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What\u2019s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers. It\u2019s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That\u2019s not AI\u2019s fault, that is the capitalist system.<\/p>\n

However, as far as I know Hinton didn\u2019t forecast specific figures. Englebardt did.<\/p>\n

In the past, 10+% annual GDP growth came only during a major war, or after a great depression that offered growth opportunities only after enormous pain. Englebardt, though, is saying that this time it\u2019s different:\u00a0AI will hit us worse than a great depression or a major war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the Wall Street Journal\u2019s Tech Live Qatar this week, broadcast to an audience of executives and investors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-302611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}