How to Keep your Job in a World of AI

Advisors: Time to reinvent yourselves, too

Ric Edelman: It's Tuesday, April 11th. And spoiler alert, if you haven't listened to yesterday's podcast, go listen to that now before you listen to this podcast today. Yesterday's podcast is only six minutes, so go listen to that real quick because I don't want you to listen to today's show until after you listen to yesterday's show.

Well, welcome back, if you did listen to yesterday's show. Let me just preface by saying, yes, it's me. And as a sidebar, this is National Financial Capability Month. That will become relevant later on in today's show. I want to talk about yesterday's podcast because it was unique. I've never done anything like that before. Frankly, until very recently, there wasn't any opportunity to do anything like that.

Now the technology is available, so I want to share with you what I did, how I did it, and my evaluation of it and the implications for you. First, I opened an account with OpenAI. OpenAI is the company that created ChatGPT. This is the new generative AI technology that is getting all the attention all over the world because of the incredible transformation of its ability to research and produce content for users. Well, I went to Openai.com, and I opened my account. It's free and it only took a minute. I then had access to ChatGPT and I simply told it to write a script on crypto to promote my book and the Global X AI and Technology ETF, symbol AIQ, and the Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence ETF, symbol BOTZ. 

And I also told it to encourage the audience to visit GlobalXETFs.com or to talk to their financial advisor. And finally, I told it to explain the role of ChatGPT and the voice cloning by Eleven Labs. That's all I told it to do. ChatGPT wrote the script. It did it instantly. I copied it, saved it into a word document. Then I went to ElevenLabs.io, and I opened an account there. This company converts text into audio and you can access thousands of voices or just use one that they pick for you.

All of this is free, but if you want to clone a voice, then you have to pay for it - $5. So I uploaded several two-minute clips of my podcasts into my account at Eleven Labs that took a minute, and then I went to my Word document. I copied the script that ChatGPT wrote, and I copied it into my account at Eleven Labs. And then almost instantaneously, Eleven Labs was reading the script in my voice. And that's what you heard on yesterday's show.

Let's talk about the script first, then we'll talk about the voice. The language and style of the script clearly sounds like me, but the content, let's face it, was pretty generic. It was just a bunch of facts. Nothing newsy or new, nothing truly informative. It was like Wonder Bread, a little bit of fiber, but mostly just a bunch of air. 

There was no edginess to what you heard, no point of view. And you know me, I always have a strong point of view. And that's because the chatbot simply looked around the internet where I've written or I've been quoted about crypto. My book, The Truth about Crypto, that full book is not on the internet, so the chatbot couldn't read that. But it does have everything that I've said on all of my podcasts.

I don't know how you're listening to this podcast. I don't know where you've downloaded it. You can get it on Apple, YouTube, Spotify, everywhere else. But if you got this podcast on my website, The Truth About Your Future, then you know that in addition to the audio file, we also have a text file of every podcast. So you don't have to listen to the show, you can read this show each day. And so ChatGPT was able to find all those text files that we've placed into our website, all the text files that I've done for all my podcasts, including all of my podcasts on crypto, and ChatGPT was able to read them and use that information to write its script in my style because that's what I told it to do. And it did. All of this scouring the internet, finding my website, grabbing all of the podcast scripts and reading them all, it did all of that in less than five seconds. It also went to the Global X ETFs website and got information there about the two Global X ETFs that it mentioned, which are relevant to AI, the Global X AI and Technology ETF and the Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence ETF. 

When I had my wife Jean listen to the show, in about 30 seconds she guessed that it wasn't me. But everybody else, including Rick Fowler, who's been producing my radio show and podcast for 30 years, he was fooled. So was everyone else. Rick knew something was going on because the opening wasn't my usual enthusiasm, he said. It sounded like I was teaching a class, but nothing stood out to him that he was listening to an AI generated clone. If he was fooled, there's no doubt that casual listeners, let alone people who don't know me at all, would all be fooled as well. Now, there were some obvious glitches by the cloning voice software. There wasn't as much inflection in the voice as I have, but I have to point out that there's a lever in the software where you can increase or decrease the voices variability and inflection. But I decided to use the clone’s default setting and the clone voice flubbed GlobalXETFs.com at one point, and it pronounced the ticker symbol for BOTZ as ‘bow - teez’. Well, the software clearly can't handle acronyms, and it didn't pause correctly a few times, as though it didn't know where to put the emphasis, which it didn't know because it's software and it was just merely reciting words. It really didn't know what it was saying. 

Still, I'm sure you'll agree this was pretty amazing and pretty scary. If I could produce an entire podcast this way, what might be the implications of this tech for your job? This is, as I said, National Financial Capability Month. You better start thinking of your financial capabilities in light of this new technology, because it's just getting started and you ain't seen nothing yet.

Last week Google’s CEO said that Google is going to add an AI like ChatGPT to its search engine. Google has no choice. Microsoft has already invested $10 billion in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Microsoft says every 1% market share of the Internet search business is worth $2 billion in revenue. Google's got 90% of the market right now and wants to keep it that way. Google's revenue from search last year - $162 billion. Now you know why Microsoft invested $10 billion in this company.

So when everybody says that we need to slow down the development and use of this technology until we figure out its implications and what it really means, these folks are kidding themselves. There’s simply too much money involved. A study from MIT now says that professionals who have used ChatGPT in their jobs - we're talking grant writers, data analysts and HR professionals, they were able to produce news releases, reports and emails 37% faster on average with superior results. Another study by Microsoft found that ChatGPT cut the time it took to program a web server by more than half. Goldman Sachs says the tech is going to double our productivity growth rate. 

This is game changing. But it's also highly disruptive. Some occupations are going to be obsolete. There's nothing new about that. Automation has been destroying jobs for centuries, but what's new is the speed of all this.

In the past, innovations occurred over a generation. Your grandfather worked on a farm. Your dad worked in a factory. You work in an office. But now the change is not generational. It's annual. And it's not just the speed that's new, it's who the innovations are affecting. In the past, innovations eliminated the lowest of jobs. Buttons in elevators eliminated the elevator operator. There's no milkman delivering milk anymore to your house. Ever hear of a knocker upper? You'd hire a knocker upper to tap on your window with a pole or to shoot peas at the glass to wake you up? Yeah, that was a real occupation. And that occupation went away in 1847 when the mechanical alarm clock was invented.

But now this new generative AI, it's targeting jobs held by highly paid, college educated professionals, not elevator operators, milkmen and knocker uppers. ChatGPT doesn't threaten dishwashers or car mechanics, but it will ruin the careers of mathematicians, interpreters, web designers and journalists. A study by the University of Pennsylvania says 20% of all workers could see at least half of their jobs affected. Some will have all of their jobs done by AI. Now, this isn't going to happen overnight. ChatGPT isn't yet good enough to replace me. It can recite facts, but it doesn't know when its facts are wrong, and it can't yet offer insights. 

And remember when everybody was saying that self-driving cars would eliminate the need for truck drivers? Today, we've got more truck drivers than ever. And the American Trucking Association says we have a shortage of 80,000 drivers. Eventually, yes, AI will take over driving, but not anytime soon.

So what it means is that you're not going to lose your job today, but your job is going to change today. Journalists won't write stories anymore. The chatbots will do that. What the journalists will do is find the story because they know how to ask good questions and they know how to evaluate the answers that they're going to get from the chatbot. Writing itself, though, will no longer be an important skill. Does all this scare you?

I remember the controversy when kids started bringing calculators into math class. Oh, they won't know their multiplication tables. That's what parents all lamented. Well, so what? Instead of wasting time playing with multiplication tables, the kids were able to use their calculators for the mundane task so they could focus their attention on learning trigonometry and calculus. Kids in school today aren't even taught cursive. They are only taught print text because nobody hand writes letters anymore. My nieces and nephews text me their thank you notes. Well, when they do, text me. That's another story. Nobody sends cards in the mail anymore. The only thing you use cursive for is your signature, if even that. So why bother teaching cursive? Why bother teaching multiplication tables when we have calculators? And likewise. Why bother teaching people how to write? Let the bots do the writing. Let us spend our time learning how to evaluate what the bots wrote.

And so the future is here. Your job will not be the same in five years. Your job might not even exist. You'll be out of work. Think about it. ChatGPT is free. The voice cloning of Eleven Labs cost me just $5. The whole thing took just five minutes. You really think your employer is going to keep paying you $100,000 a year to do what tech can do faster, cheaper and better? And ChatGPT never calls in sick, never has a hangover, never sexually harasses other employees, doesn't demand unionization, and doesn't need training or supervision.

If you're smart, you'll learn how to use this tech in your job. You'll become more productive, and that's how you'll be more valuable to your employer. That's how you'll keep your job. And in fact, it's how you'll invent your next job- jobs that today don't yet exist. Or you can be like that knocker upper and wait for unemployment and obsolescence. Your choice. See you tomorrow. Or will I?  

And yes, in case you need a hit on the head. Talk to your financial advisor about the Global X AI and Technology ETF, Symbol AIQ and the Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence ETF, symbol BOTZ. Or visit GlobalXETFs.com. 

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