AI is automating mediocrity out of existence
Artificial intelligence makes human intelligence cheap and pervasive.
AI has made intelligence both cheap and astronomically expensive.
Fast-improving tools like ChatGPT have lowered the barrier to entry for nearly everything. Anyone can draft legal contracts, create art, write poetry or code.
People like me can build productive businesses without a large team.
But when everyone can access the same world-class tools, competence itself becomes commoditized. What once took years of training is now drag-and-drop.
And in the process of democratizing knowledge, AI has done the same with mediocrity.
(Think of the AI-generated slop that now fills our Instagram feeds.)
So yes, the professional playing field is easier to access than ever before. But it’s not remotely more level.
Innovation has a habit of killing gatekeepers while crowning a new ruling class — that is, the few who can best wield the technology of the moment.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has the cash to take advantage of this. He’s poaching top talent from leading competitors like OpenAI with $100 million pay packages to work in his company’s newly announced “Superintelligence” division.
Does that sound crazy to you? It does to me.
But maybe I’m not smart or well-capitalized enough to understand the gravity of the situation.
Zuckerberg and other executives like Sam Altman seem to believe that the potential glory of building the best thinking machines justifies giving engineers NBA-sized compensation packages.
“As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,” Zuckerberg wrote in a recent company memo. “I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity, and I am fully committed to doing what it takes for Meta to lead the way.”
There’s always a chance that a market this hot turns out to be a bubble.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the very best engineers in this moment have more leverage than ever.
The astronomical premium on AI talent underscores exactly what I’m trying to unpack in this essay. When we have tools that make infinite knowledge free, the ones who can wield them best can generate exponential value. Everyone else gets the scraps.
That’s the paradox of abundance.
When everyone has access to intelligence, intelligence alone loses its edge. It’s no longer about what you know, but how you use it to separate yourself from others.
Execution at the bleeding edge of AI is now the scarcest and most coveted asset in the economy. That’s why the professional class is in the midst of a reordering.
The most plum jobs will no longer go to the most experienced or credentialed. Capital will flow to the select few who can leverage AI with taste, originality and technical fluency to broaden the frontier.
Case in point, Microsoft announced it was laying off 9,000 employees on Wednesday — the same week it circulated a memo telling staff “using AI is no longer optional,” and days after news broke of Zuck’s $100 million hiring blitz.
Meanwhile:
Microsoft and Google’s CEOs both said AI now writes 30% of company code
Amazon’s Web Services chief said the need for human coding is shrinking
Zuckerberg predicts 100% of Meta’s code will be AI-generated within 18 months
Anthropic’s CEO said AI could wipe out 50% of all entry-level white-collar work within 5 years
It’s a brutal top-down message from Big Tech. Average is being automated out of existence and mediocrity can no longer hide among broadly talented ranks.
If it’s true that a sizable chunk of the world’s most expensive code is already being written by AI, the value of writing decent code goes to zero.
In its place comes unique taste and industry-moving AI capabilities.
To me, these fringe ideas will soon become hardline rules for white-collar work:
AI handles all grunt work
Competence is bare minimum
Keeping your job requires vision for the future
Soon, knowing how to use AI tools won’t be enough. The winners of this new order will be those who can best leverage human intelligence to direct artificial intelligence toward useful, productive outcomes.
We are already witnessing AI eliminate jobs. My old employer, Business Insider, cited AI-driven productivity gains as a reason for its latest layoffs.
Arguably more concerning, though, is how AI is rapidly repricing who gets paid at the extremes.
Yes, rising unemployment is painful and disruptive. But layered on top of that is a total reevaluation of economic value, which seems far more existential.
The bottom is falling out for white-collar work while the top is being bid into the stratosphere.
In theory, AI offers a rising tide. More people have more tools and more opportunities within reach. In practice, it’s revealing a perverse form of inequality.
A new breed of talent is capturing an outsized share of economic upside and societal influence.
It’s made for a strange, exciting, troubling, confusing moment.
Intelligence is pervasive and cheap. Genius is expensive. Competence is commonplace and knowledge is commoditized. Talent is the new capital and taste commands a premium.
If the last five decades rewarded knowledge, the next one will reward discernment.
Phil Rosen
Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, Opening Bell Daily
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this post, consider hitting the “like” button to help boost visibility. If the ideas resonated, I’d love to hear why — reply directly to this email or leave a comment below.