The AI Daily Brief: Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis - Who Will Adapt Best to AI Disruption?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today on the AI Daily Brief, a new study that looks at who is best suited to deal with AI-driven job displacement. And before that in the headlines, OpenAI joins Microsoft in making new commitments to the communities in which they're building out AI infrastructure. The AI Daily Brief is a daily podcast and video about the most important news and discussions in AI. All right, friends, quick announcements before we dive in. First of all, thank you to today's sponsors, KPMG, ZenCoder, robots and pencils, and superintelligent. To get an ad-free version of the show, go to patreon.com. slash AI Daily Brief, or you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. And if you are interested in sponsoring the show, send us a note at sponsors at

Starting point is 00:00:40 Aidelebrief.a.I. Lastly, if you want to up your skills, it is not too late to join our New Year's AI resolution. We've got over 5,000 people participating now. You can find all about it at AIDBNew Year.com. Welcome back to the AID Daily Brief Headlines edition, all the daily AI news you need in around five minutes. We kick off today with the latest AI company to commit to making sure their data centers are good neighbors. Recently, we've been tracking what hopefully becomes a wave of commitments from companies

Starting point is 00:01:09 that are building these data centers to ensure that there aren't negative externalities for the communities in which those data centers are located in. If you are a regular listener, you will know that I think this is coming too late, but I am glad to see it happening. And frankly, I think that we should aspire not just to not being disruptive, but to actually being a positive partner. The latest company to make these commitments is OpenAI, who in a blog post introducing the new initiative, which they call Stargate Community, they wrote, across all our Stargate community plans, we commit to paying our own way on energy so that our operations don't increase your electricity prices. They noted that every community will require efforts tailored

Starting point is 00:01:43 to their unique conditions, but OpenAI said that their plans could include bringing their own power resources or paying for local grid upgrades. Turning to water use, OpenAI said their impact would be minimized by using modern closed loop or low water cooling systems. They wrote that these are, quote, innovations in cooling water systems designed that drastically reduce the water use compared to traditional data centers. Water required by our facilities should be a fraction of the community's overall water use. For their first data center in Abilene, Texas, they quoted the local mayor stating that a year's worth of water use for the data center would be half as much as the county uses in a single day. In addition, OpenAI is committing to regional workforce development in the communities

Starting point is 00:02:19 around their data centers by establishing OpenAI academies. They said this initiative would include credentialing and clear pathways to high-quality jobs aligned to local employers and the regional AI industry. The company said that they would also engage with local labor unions and other partners to support the skilled trades required to build and operate the facilities. The post concludes, Stargate is a physical infrastructure program that requires deep partnership. We are reliant on and grateful to the communities that make it possible and were committed to showing up as long-term partners. In a somewhat related story, the White House is pushing for an emergency power auction in the Northeast to deal with spiraling energy costs. Last Friday, the administration published a plan to

Starting point is 00:02:56 require tech companies to indirectly fund the construction of new power plants. In agreement with multiple state governors, the White House intends to compel the nation's largest grid operator, PJM interconnection, to hold an emergency wholesale power auction later this year. The auction would allow tech companies to bid on 15-year contracts for new electricity generation capacity. The goal is to provide PJM with the certainty they require to accelerate construction, while also moving the cost burden onto the tech companies. As the regulations currently stand, expansion is largely financed by increasing rates on existing customers. New power contracts help, but until now, they've only been offered for 12-month terms. PJM services more than 67 million people stretching from the northeast

Starting point is 00:03:34 all the way to parts of the Midwest. They are currently forecasting a 17% jump in peak demand across their system by 2030. Now, the involvement of bipartisan governors is noteworthy, as electricity has become a major issue in multiple local elections. Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro claimed that PJM has been, quote, slow to let new generation onto the grid at a time when energy demand is going up. Shapiro is up for re-election in November, and energy costs have been one of the key issues on the campaign trail. The question ultimately will be whether an emergency auction will bring meaningful relief

Starting point is 00:04:03 for consumers given the long lead times for new power plants. The long-term nature of the plan is absolutely a welcome change, but who knows if it'll be enough to diffuse the issue by November. Now, moving back to OpenAI, in addition to Stargate communities, the company also announced their new education for countries program. They wrote about the need for such a program in the conference. context of the capability overhang, which we covered earlier this week. They wrote, Education systems are a critical route through which this gap is closed. Studies project that by

Starting point is 00:04:31 2030, nearly 40% of the core skills workers rely on today will change, driven largely by AI. By embedding AI tools, training, and research into the core infrastructure of schools and universities, education systems can evolve alongside these shifts and better prepare students to thrive in a world with AI. The program will see OpenAI work with foreign governments and universities to bring AI into education systems, and in addition, Open AI will provide tailored training through their Open AI Academy and Certification System. The first cohort of partner countries includes Estonia, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, Trinidad, and Tobago, and the UAE. Google is also doubling down on education as a major focus for their AI organization. In collaboration with the Princeton

Starting point is 00:05:10 Review, Gemini can now serve free, full-length practice exams on demand. The feature will begin with practice SATs, with Gemini providing instant feedback for students. In addition, Google has awarded half a million dollars in funding to Cal State Fullerton to support AI literacy training for educators. Associate Professor Bridget Druchin said, when teachers understand how AI systems work, including how to build, evaluate, and use them thoughtfully and responsibly, they can guide students in asking good questions about technology rather than just consuming it. Now, as you can tell, all of these headlines are sort of all part of a larger story,

Starting point is 00:05:41 which is society's adaptation to AI. And that, of course, has been a major topic of conversation at Davos this week as well. The latest to comment on that is Microsoft CEO, Satcha Nadella, who warned at Davos that AI risks losing public support if the technology doesn't deliver clear benefits to everyday people. In an interview from the WEF, he said, We as a global community have to get to a point where we're using this to do something useful that changes the outcomes of people in communities and countries and industries. Otherwise, I don't think this makes much sense. In fact, I would say we will quickly lose

Starting point is 00:06:10 even the social permission to actually take something like energy, which is a scarce resource and use it to generate these tokens. Discussing AI job disruption, Nadella rejected the idea that this is something external happening to society beyond intervention, commenting, going and thinking of these as somehow living outside of the realm of human agency is probably not the right way to think about it. He's also not super convinced that AI leads to a world with no human work required. In fact, he believes the opposite, comparing this moment to the adoption of the personal computer. Nadella said, in the early 80s, if someone had come to us and said that 4 billion people are going to wake up every morning and start typing, you would have said,

Starting point is 00:06:44 why? We have a typist tool and that's good enough. We don't need 4 billion people. Nadella is also a firm believer in Javon's paradox when it comes to AI. This axi implies that cheaper AI will drive up demand rather than lead to a market crash. He said, if you buy my entire argument that we've got a new commodity, it's tokens, and the job of every economy in every firm in the economy is to translate these tokens into economic growth, then if you have a cheaper commodity, it's better. Overall, Nadella's view is that AI is a technology that will become deeply ingrained in society and the economy, rather than an external actor disrupting human flourishing. He said, all of these token factories are part of the real economy, connected to the grid, connected to the telco network.

Starting point is 00:07:24 That's what's going to drive at scale, whether it's the global south or in the developed world. To others who commented on the speed of AI disruption at Davos were JPMorgan CEO Jamie Diamond and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. In a very frank and stark discussion at Davos, Diamond said that companies and governments cannot ignore AI or put their head in the sand. He said, it is what it is. We're going to deploy it. Will it eliminate jobs? Yes. Will it it changed jobs? Yes. Will it add some jobs? Probably. It is what it is and you can hope for the world you want, but you're going to get the world you've got. He added, your competitors are going to use it and countries are going to use it. However, it may go too fast for society and if it goes too

Starting point is 00:08:04 fast for society, that's where governments and businesses need to, in a collaborative way, step in together and come up with a way to retrain people and move it over time. Diamond gave the example of the two million truck drivers in America that are likely to be pushed out by autonomous driving in the medium to long term. He said, should you use the way to do it all at once, if 2 million people go from driving a truck and making $150,000 a year to a next job that might be $25,000? No, you will have a civil unrest, so phase it in. Now, playing his role at Optimist in Chief, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang argued that labor shortages rather than mass layoffs were going to be the issue that society needs to face.

Starting point is 00:08:38 He said, energy is creating jobs, the chip industry is creating jobs, the infrastructure layer is creating jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. This is the largest infrastructure buildout in human history. That's going to create a lot of jobs. He also reiterated a point that he's made before that this particular tech revolution was actually creating a ton of opportunity in the physical trades. He said it's wonderful that the jobs are related to tradecraft and we're going to have plumbers and electricians and construction and steelworkers. In the United States, we're seeing a significant boom in this area. Everyone should be able to make a great living. You don't need a degree in computer science to do so. And while some people were quick to argue that the jobs

Starting point is 00:09:13 that Jensen is talking about are very temporary and will only last until data centers are built, Others from very different walks of life embrace the message. Mike Rowe, who you might recognize from The Dirty Job Show, talked about this discussion between Jensen and Larry Fink, and said, I couldn't make it to Davos this year, but I'm delighted to see that my message has. Obviously, our workforce is nowhere near ready for what's coming. In fact, we're not ready for what's already here.

Starting point is 00:09:35 We're going to need to dramatically rethink the way we train the men and women who will build the infrastructure in question and the speed with which we do so. I'm heartened and encouraged to see Silicon Valley at the table. Now, of course, this debate is going to continue. and in fact, AI disruption is also the topic of our main episode, so that is going to do it for the headlines, and to that other topic, we will now move. Sure, there's hype about AI,

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Starting point is 00:11:51 robots and pencils is built for that moment. Start the conversation at robots and pencils.com slash AI Daily Brief. That's robots and pencils.com slash AI Daily Brief. Robots and pencils. Impact at velocity. Today's episode is brought to you by my company Super Intelligent. In 26, one of the key themes in Enterprise AI, if not the key theme, is going to be how good is the infrastructure into which you are putting AI? and agents. Super Intelligence agent readiness audits are specifically designed to help you figure out,

Starting point is 00:12:21 one, where and how AI and agents can maximize business impact for you, and two, what you need to do to set up your organization to be best able to leverage those new gains. If you want to truly take advantage of how AI and agents can not only enhance productivity, but actually fundamentally change outcomes in measurable ways in your business this year, go to be super.aI. Welcome back to the AI Daily Brief. Very clearly, one of the big topics. heading into 2026 is AI-related job disruption. It has been a major topic at the World Economic Forum at Davos. It's something that is clearly on the minds of people across the U.S., and especially in an election year seems like it could start to become a political issue as well. Now, one of the things that we've

Starting point is 00:13:06 seen with some frequency is studies that try to measure the amount of exposure that different jobs or professions have to AI disruption. In other words, which jobs are most likely to be disrupted versus which jobs are least likely to change and be disrupted. A new group from the national Bureau of Economic Research, argues that that is actually missing one of the key questions. We need to not only know, the authors suggest, which roles are most susceptible to disruption, but how adaptable different categories of workers are if that job displacement should come for them. To figure this out, the study creates a novel measure that they call adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity includes a few different factors.

Starting point is 00:13:43 The first is liquid financial resources. This is perhaps obvious, but the authors write, workers with greater savings, weather economic storms more effectively. They point to a 2008 study that shows that individuals with greater liquid savings are less financially distressed after job loss and take longer to find better matching jobs. Low wealth individuals, on the other hand, are sometimes forced to take whatever they can get, leading to lower quality employment. The next factor of adaptive capacity is age. They point to a 2017 study that showed that workers aged 55 to 64, who experienced job loss during the Great Recession, were significantly less likely

Starting point is 00:14:18 than those who are aged 35 to 44 to find new employment afterwards. And the difference was about 16 percentage points. Everything from retraining to relocation to switching occupations is more difficult for that older cohort. This leads overall to job loss for older workers, leading to greater earnings losses and lower re-employment rates overall. A third factor that the authors include is geographic density. And once again, this might seem a little bit obvious, but they point to a 2012 study that found that workers who were in more densely populated areas,

Starting point is 00:14:49 basically think big cities, had less challenge-making work transitions compared to those who were in comparatively low-density areas. And intuitively, again, this makes sense. More densely populated areas are going to have more jobs, which means more opportunities for those who lose their jobs. The last factor that they consider is skill transferability. When a person has skills that can be applied across many different jobs,

Starting point is 00:15:09 that creates more occupational mobility than if you have a highly specialized skill set. Once again, the authors point to a 2016 study, this time showing that individuals with higher skills transferability had smaller earnings losses after displacement. The authors acknowledged that there are some other things that could impact adaptability, such as income and union representation, but they argued that based on the literature in previous studies, those were less conclusively linked to better outcomes, and so decided to focus on these four areas. The authors then combined a set of six primary datasets to create a composite measure of adaptive

Starting point is 00:15:41 capacity by occupation. They looked across something like 350 jobs representing about 96% of American employment. From there, they were able to group people into four different categories. Basically, they looked at the adaptive capacity index, this new measure that they were creating, and an AI exposure index about how susceptible to disruption their profession was. One quadrant then, in many ways the most desirable, at least based on the terms of this study, were jobs that had both high adaptive capacity as well as low vulnerability. On the other end of the spectrum, were jobs with low adaptive capacity and high vulnerability. In the middle, of course, were roles that have high vulnerability but also high adaptive capacity,

Starting point is 00:16:18 or low adaptive capacity but also low vulnerability. Summing up their findings, the authors write, On average, highly AI-exposed workers appear well equipped to handle job transitions relative to the rest of the workforce. Yet 6.1 million workers still face both high exposure and low adaptive capacity. Basically, they found that the quadrant of workers who had high vulnerability to AI disruption, but also a high adaptive capacity, represented around 26.5 million workers. This included occupation such as software developers, financial managers, lawyers, and in their words, other professions that benefit from strong pay, financial buffers, diverse skills,

Starting point is 00:16:55 and deep professional networks. Given that, the author's right, these well-positioned workers, who observers often cite as being highly threatened by AI automation, likely possess relevant. relatively strong means to adjust to AI-driven dislocation if it were to occur. The group instead that they are most concerned with is these 6.1 million workers who face both high exposure to AI disruption and low adaptive capacity to manage a new job transition. The authors write, many of these workers occupy administrative and clerical jobs where savings are modest, worker skill transferability is limited, and reemployment prospects are narrower,

Starting point is 00:17:29 meaning, of course, that if those folks experience AI-related job loss, they're likely to be at risk of lower reemployment rates, longer job searches, and more significant relative earnings losses as compared to others. Now, one of the critical findings is that among this group, with high exposure and low adaptive capacity, 86% of these most vulnerable workers are women, whereas some of the occupations, like software developers, financial analysts, and web developers, and marketing managers have high exposure, they also have diverse skills portfolios, they tend to work in dense metro areas, and they have liquid net worth that can be in the hundreds of thousands. There are also geographic patterns in the vulnerability. The authors find that vulnerability

Starting point is 00:18:09 is concentrated in places like college towns and state capitals that have lots of administrative positions that are supporting institutions. Places like Laramie, Wyoming, Stillwater, Oklahoma, Springfield, Illinois, and Carson City, Nevada have something like 5 to 7% of their local workforce being in this high vulnerability category. Now, I think this is super interesting analysis, but one of the things that stands out to me is that when it comes to measuring adaptability, a lot of the measures that they're using presuppose a world where there are a similar number of other jobs to adapt to. In other words, my concern is that it might be underestimating the structural changes to work. Now, the authors do note this, they acknowledge in their limitation section, somewhat in passing,

Starting point is 00:18:50 that if AI, quote, fundamentally reshapes the economy, these historical relationships may not hold. But I think that that caveat understates the problem. Every component of the adaptive capacity index is calibrated in a world where displacement is localized and destination jobs exist. It basically models AI disruption as a larger version of a plant closure or a trade shock, discrete localized events where affected workers transition into an otherwise stable economy. Pretty much all the historical evidence they cite describes exactly that type of scenario. AI, of course, could work differently. If it affects cognitive task categories rather than specific firms or industries,

Starting point is 00:19:26 you could see things like simultaneous pressure across related occupations. The secretary, customer service rep, insurance claims processor, and office clerk all face exposure at once, meaning they can't absorb each other's displaced workers. We could also see some pretty significant shifts in skill complementarity. The framework assumes skills are either transferable or not, but AI might make some skills radically more valuable while devaluing others entirely. Transferability becomes a moving target. The question is basically, what if there's no adaptive capacity that prepares you for a world

Starting point is 00:19:56 where the category of work you do is being structurally reduced rather than shifted? The framework that the authors provide can tell you that a 58-year-old medical secretary in Springfield, Illinois, with $3,000 in savings, is going to struggle more than a 32-year-old software developer in Seattle with $200,000 in liquid assets. What it can't tell you is what happens if there's simply less demand for human cognitive labor and aggregate. And so does that mean this isn't useful? I would argue that no, it is still, in fact, useful for a very specific reason. Effectively, what these authors are helping provide is triage policy during a transition. Even if there is total structural disruption, human and institutional inertia is likely to draw it out over some time. And net net, what this research can help show is that the most vulnerable groups identified here

Starting point is 00:20:40 might need the fastest and most direct policy response even as we figure out the full extent of the disruption. There is a strong argument to be made, in other words, that whatever the endpoint looks like, whether it's structural transformation, a more modest acceleration of existing automation trends, and whatever happens on job creation on the other side, the sequencing of the disruption will likely follow something like the vulnerability gradient that this research identifies. If the conventional framing of this would have been will help these workers transition to growing occupations, the more honest version might be, we don't know what the labor market looks like in 10 years, but we do know that these workers will face income disruption first,

Starting point is 00:21:17 have the least capacity to self-insure, and are concentrated enough geographically to reach efficiently. We should get resources to them fast while we figure out the rest. A lot of what you are hearing me advocate for on this show is less fanciful imagined discussion and much more direct and discrete policy discussion. And I think that the findings in this study can contribute to exactly that sort of discrete policy analysis. I will link to the study in the show notes

Starting point is 00:21:38 so you can go check it out for yourself, but for now, that is going to do it for the AI Daily Brief. Appreciate you listening or watching, as always, and until next time, peace.

The AI Daily Brief: Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis - Who Will Adapt Best to AI Disruption?

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