The AI wave is coming. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it.
For the last couple of years, people have been asking me “Dave, how do I prepare? How do I protect my family?”
There are four overarching plays you can make to do this.
I. Where you live
Buy a home. Sell a home. Move to the city. Move out of the city.
Where do you want to live? If you could live anywhere, what would you choose?
For most of the industrial age, and for pretty much all the modern world, you live close to work. American cities in particular are designed to efficiently transit you from where you sleep to where you make money for someone else.
AI and robots are going to nuke most wage labor.
Fortunately, we had a natural experiment to teach us how to react to jobs changing in the form of the COVID pandemic and WFH (work from home) mandates.
What happened?
San Francisco is emptying out. 30% of office buildings are empty. Some are being transformed into residential.
Why? It’s expensive, noisy, and nasty. COVID taught us that we have the technology to work anywhere, any time, for any company.
Many people are getting out.
One colleague (before I quit the rat race) bought a farm an hour outside of town. A good friend of mine moved to a small town. Two acre lot, backed up by farms, in a tiny little cul-de-sac. I followed him a couple years later.
But let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t some dream fantasy. Let’s break it down to brass tacks. Here are the considerations and advantages to moving.
Cost of living decrease
Cultural and value alignment
Climate and weather alignment
Lifestyle affordances
Let me give you some examples.
My wife and I moved to a smaller town. We left Raleigh, NC.
Constant construction.
Huge inflows of Yankees and Californians. They all drive like jerks and drive up home prices.
I sold my house for a nice profit, it doubled in value in 9 years.
Today, we live in a smaller town where everyone knows everyone, and we see the same people every day. We have our dog park community, the same faces at the shops and restaurants we frequent.
There are no less than 6 parks within 10 or 15 minutes, and these are not little parks. They are old farms converted into public spaces, with miles of trails.
Our town puts on festivals and hosts arts and music all the time, plus the farmer’s market every weekend.
Sounds rustic, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely for us.
Start thinking about where you want to live. Beach? Mountains? Forest? Desert? Big city? Small town? Middle of nowhere? What area would be most aligned with your values, lifestyle preferences, and social needs?
II. Investments
I’m not gonna pull a Dave Ramsey and tell you what to buy and sell. I’m not gonna shill crypto either.
What I can give you is this: the world is transitioning away from wage-labor and towards broadening capital. If you’re already wealthy enough to own stocks, bonds, or rental properties, congrats! You’re ahead of the curve. You’ll have a leg up as people start getting laid off en masse (which is 100% coming).
If you don’t have savings, then start.
I’ve heard lots of excuses over the years, “people don’t have privileges that you do!”
I saved up for my first rental property, $12,000 down payment, while working at a $36,000 per year job. I don’t believe there is anything preventing people from saving. There are excuses, there is laziness, and there is poor choices.
And no, I’m not a boomer. I did that after the Great Recession. Saving requires discipline. If you want to read a lifechanging book, check out The Millionaire Next Door. Completely changed my attitude towards money.
The number one lesson?
Always live below your means
Seems pretty simple and obvious. Don’t rely on credit. Don’t take out too much debt. If your household income is $60k per year, live like you make $50k, and save the rest. If your household income is $200k per year, live like you make $80k, and save the rest.
Some people say “but what about children?” Yes, they are expensive. I know.
But if a family of four can make it by on $60k, then so can you. Save the rest.
As to what to buy? That’s between you and your financial advisor. My strategy is dividend-yielding ETFs. An ETF is an exchange-traded fund (basically a mutual fund that is traded like stocks). Why?
You never need to sell a good ETF. No sales? No realized capital gains.
With no pressure to sell, I don’t worry about the market. It goes up in the long run.
Eventually, I’ll live on the dividends. In the meantime, I save like crazy.
My father in law is crazy about rental properties. I’ve been there, done that, can’t stand the overhead and work. Some people love it. It’s not for everyone. Like I said, your particular investment strategy is up to you.
But whatever you do, save, invest. Start yesterday.
III. Work
Yes, I’m the Post-Labor Economics guy who’s pushing the Labor Zero movement.
But that doesn’t mean all work is going away forever. It just means that wage labor is breaking down, and the economy will pivot. Hard.
That means you have an opportunity. If you want to keep working, there are a few directions of travel.
First, you need know what’s dying.
KVM (keyboard video mouse) jobs. If your job is entirely done in front of a computer, there’s a good chance you’re on the chopping block.
Single-task jobs like cleaning, driving, and cooking. Robots are coming for those jobs too.
Knowledge work. Doctors, lawyers, software. If your primary job is selling what you know, I got bad news for you.
You might say “so, what, do we all become content creators?”
No.
Content creation is “winners take most.” That’s why I never shill the idea that you can become just like me. I make 100% of my money from content creation, but that’s just as much down to dumb luck as it is hard work. I have creator friends who are just as smart as me, better looking, and more charismatic. Why I make a living from it, and they can’t, I can’t say. It’s not about hard work. It’s not about polish.
There’s just some je ne sais quoi that the attention economy wants, and I happen to have the face, voice, and mind for it.
Don’t bank on that.
And anyways, the numbers are abysmal. 10% of young American women are on OnlyFans, and the median MRR is less than $400. The numbers are pretty similar for YouTubers.
So what jobs are going to stick around?
Attention economy jobs - yes, already discussed that.
Experience economy jobs - bartenders, massage therapists, trip sitters, escorts.
Authenticity economy jobs - coaches, entertainers, celebrities (stuff tied to a particular name and face)
Meaning economy jobs - priests and philosophers. Humans make meaning from other humans.
These will be the bulk of remaining careers, but there will still be other avenues. Statutory jobs, like judges and politicians, will persist. These are jobs that are required to have a human by law, and I don’t foresee that changing any time soon. It comes down to accountability, reputation, and trust.
You can fire a judge. You can vote out a politician. You can arrest a crooked cop.
In the interim, plenty of jobs are already evolving. My wife is a freelancer. She focuses on content, marketing, and writing. But rather than be replaced by AI, she’s high leverage because she uses AI. Her clients hire her because she can use AI to research, plan, and draft quickly. They also like her charm, humor, and domain expertise.
It’s not just about knowing how to use AI. It’s also about knowing what to tell the AI to do. Will her career last? Who knows, time will tell. But many business owners prefer to hire humans for these roles.
Even business owners themselves who use AI extensively.
But this is a narrowing trend. If you’re a freelancer who just does copywriting, there’s a good chance your work is drying up for good. You’ll need to ascend the hierarchy of specialization + domain breadth.
The good news is AI can help you do that.
Start pivoting now, if you haven’t already. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. For me, it was pure luck to pivot to the attention economy (and make it) before AI nuked my tech job. I could have moved up into management, but working 10 hour days of back to back meetings does not sound aligned or purposeful to me.
IV. Mission
For most of you, the future does not include labor.
That’s just a fact. Get used to it.
You might be a victim of Western values, such as the Calvinist idea that work is sacred and laziness is sinful. Our Protestant work ethic was secularized into the hustle. Into the grindset.
If that’s your identity, you’ve got some work to do. Your identity pegged to chasing dollars will not serve you.
There’s a different way to look at it though. Meaning. Mission. Purpose. Higher calling. Whatever you want to call it. Destiny. Fate. God’s plan.
There is something you’re meant to do on this Earthly plane of existence.
My mission right now is to solve post-labor economics and get that information out into the world. If I’m right, and I succeed, I will have helped the human race become more prosperous. Alleviate suffering, increase prosperity.
Aristotle said the purpose of a man’s life is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. (More or less).
That was a good enough heuristic for me. That resonated.
But that’s not for everyone. If being “burdened with glorious purpose” does not turn you on, no worries.
Maybe your true passion is music. So lean in.
Maybe your true passion is family. So lean in.
Maybe your true passion is exploration. So lean in.
You get the idea.
Exercise radical candor. Be 100% honest with yourself. The thing you are afraid to admit that you want, that’s the direction you. Jung said it first; where your fear is, is the direction of travel.
Your true self, your higher self, was buried by social pressure. Family expectations. The need to survive. To put your heart and soul on the shelf and instead pursue money.
Conclusion
I recently had a salaryman give a snide comment on LinkedIn (what else is new). He reacted to my “liberate humanity from drudgery” mantra and the idea of using AI to empower humans.
He said, on my Labor Zero movement:
Very interesting. What is your goal with this movement? Should we use AI in more human-centric ways and empower people rather than trying to maximize profits at all costs?
This was an obvious rhetorical trap. I call this capitalist Stockholm syndrome. The false choice of “use AI to empower people OR maximize profits.”
My response was:
Depends on what you mean by “empower people”? If you mean “give humans tools that are superior to them in every way conceivable and keep them around just to rubber stamp machine work.” Then no, that is not what I’m advocating for.
If, however, you mean “empower humans by completely shattering the institution of wage slavery so that people can pursue their true passions and reach their personal highest potential, irrespective of economic utility” then yes, I am all about empowering people.
I hope you’ll take this post to heart.
Empower yourself.
No one else can.
The best time to start is yesterday.
The second best is today.
―Dave
“If I’m right, and I succeed, I will have helped the human race become more prosperous.”
You have already have done this David!
I had a conversation with someone about a year ago and they said “you sound like David Shapiro and proceeded to tell me how much your work influenced them”.
Your ideas continue to be a guiding light, I appreciate you brother.
Great insights! In glad I found you. Thank you.