Predictions on The Future of Work: AI, The Gig Economy, and DEI

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0:32Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And you're listening to our special three-part series on the future of work, where we look at the business and technology trends that will shape the workforce, employment, and the very nature of work. Today, we're kicking it off with our very own predictions about how work will change in the coming years. Scott, let's get straight to it, starting with what might be the biggest factor affecting jobs, artificial intelligence. Some quick figures, just in the tech industry alone, AI job listings are up 42 % since the rollout of ChatGPT in late 2022.

1:10The overall market for IT jobs is down 31 % in the same period. Big picture, how does AI affect the overall job market in the next five years and beyond? You know, interestingly, at an event I had, I was talking to Alex Stamos, who was a CTO, and he thinks this is just going to change and decimate things as people try to get more efficient. And a lot of jobs will be replaced across the workforce. He was talking about tech specifically, stuff that can be automated and done by tech, ideas. You know, everywhere you go, whether it's writing, especially white collar jobs, this is not a new and fresh idea.

1:46Things are going to change. law associates when they used to need, as he noted, five, they're going to need two. That does free people up to do more intelligent stuff that they can work on and more specific, and it pulls away some jobs. But you're not going to have to have law associates. That's a very typical one. People often point to radiologists. It will give them a better ability to do it, but it will drive efficiency across the universe, essentially, especially white-collar jobs. And that will affect jobs very seriously. And I'm sorry to tell you, CEOs are going to do it because it'll save money.

2:19So I think AI will be the most impactful thing in the workforce going forward over anything else remote. I largely agree with that. I would describe AI as corporate as Empik in the short term, and that is it reduces management's cravings for more people. And I don't think CEOs are being straight with their workforces about the immediate impact AI is having, not only on the ground, but just psychologically. I think they are thinking, well, maybe instead of if our plan was to hire 200 people this quarter, maybe we hire 80 and see if we can use AI to fill in the other 120. And it's not a one-for-one replacement.

3:01We've talked about this. It's not replacing Joe, the paralegal. It's saying, okay, we only need two Joes and two Susans instead of six paralegals. So armed with the correct AI and the correct tools, they should just become more productive. Now, having said that, I don't see any reason why this isn't shaping up to have the exact same curve and cadence as every other technology that was supposed to put everyone out of work. There was huge fears around automation, huge fears around computers. And typically what you see is in the short term, you have job destruction, but then the amount of productivity, the amount of additional capital, the amount of new business niches that pop up, end up over the medium and long term actually adding to net employment.

3:48And I don't see any reason why that won't happen here. I'm being pitched every day on new AI startups that will create new jobs. And I think this will free up people to do side gigs. My son is trying, I downloaded an AI bot to help him buy sneakers during drops. And I can see, I just think there's going to be a million different AI-inspired businesses that will create new employment. Yeah, it's sort of like talking about the internet did this. Of course, they wouldn't remember it was going to destroy jobs. I think, look, it's going to destroy some jobs. There's no question. Let's not try to yell the lily hill.

4:23It's not going to be all up and to the right for people. There, you have to look, if you're a leader, you have to look at every cost and this will save costs. If you're a worker or an employee, often white collar work, how does it help you? And I think I urge people, how can artificial intelligence help you do your job better? And it's not here to save you. It's not here to kill you. Either one. But there's all kinds of efficiencies. And I think when Tyler Perry, which I think he was a little dramatic because he's a dramatic person, you know, stopped this one facility that he was building, a studio in Atlanta, not spending$800 million because he saw the ChatGPT video service.

4:59Sora, I think he was being a little bit early to the situation, but he's not directionally correct is that he doesn't have to have as many studios. He doesn't have to do much as much stuff. And it will affect jobs, painters, all kinds of things. And it's just happening. And I, you know, people are like, I was approaching like, Kara, that's so terrible that there are not going to be painters. I said, there's not going to be painters. I don't know what to tell you. You're going to have to accept this. You replace this technology with lots of things all the time, whether there used to be blockbuster videos, there used to a store, you go in and you pick out your video.

5:32They all work there. They made the videos. There used to be payphone people. There used to be everything, just like so many things that, you know, there used to be butter churns. That doesn't happen anymore. And so this is, as ugly as it may seem, this can create lots of new opportunities, as Scott said. So that's what we think. AI, biggest impact, I think. Okay, let's move on to another big topic in the future of work, hybrid work and remote work, something we've talked about a ton on Pivot. And again, let me give you some statistics from Forbes. As of last year, nearly 13 % of employees work from home, nearly 30 % work in a hybrid model.

6:07About 59 % of people are still heading into the office on a traditional five-day work schedule. Obviously, people that have to be there, stores, things like that, food, that's different. But again, white-collar workers, much more so at home. when I was at Microsoft this week, we did this book thing that they were there and someone said, it's so nice for everyone to be here. People love being at work and there's great things about being at work. I think the hybrid model is the way things are gonna go, that you are gonna go intentionally to work, to do things like listening to me talk about my book or whatever, or get together with your team or have some in-person time.

6:45I know Scott is a little different about how important he thinks in homework, But I do think, especially women, really like the system where they get to manage their time better and get to decide and still be productive. So I think companies have to remain flexible. And more and more companies will do this. This is a trend heading, getting just bigger and bigger. And I'm not talking about every office, but quite a few of them are going to be operating this way more and more. Office space, who knows? I don't know. Scott, your thoughts? Well, there's a lot of nuance here. So I would argue that remote work is an enormous unlock for people in their 30s and definitely their 40s and 50s who have kids and dogs and a lot of different things pulling at their life and their time.

7:32I think remote work has been a disaster for people in their 20s. And that is, I think during your 20s, you're trying to figure out a sense of self. you're trying to establish a series of skills. And the majority of the real lasting skills in the corporate world and also in your personal life are soft skills. And it's very difficult to develop soft skills over a screen. It's difficult to figure out how to read a room. It's difficult to figure out how to establish mentors over Zoom. And also, it's really difficult to meet potential friends, business partners, and mates remotely. And people don't talk about this because the HR A person's hair gets on fire here.

8:07And so we're now sequestering or now eliminating from young people the opportunity to potentially find friends, mentors, and mates. And they need, especially young men whose prefrontal cortex and soft skills don't develop as quickly as women's, they need the office. I learned so much having to put on a tie, take a shower, show up on time, be in a conference room, when to speak, and most importantly, when just a listen and how to get along with people and how to go into another person's office. And when I met someone at another investment bank and I was interested in them, trying to figure out a way to ask them to coffee in a safe way.

8:49I mean, these are important skills. And young people who aren't experiencing that and not developing the discipline and the ability to read a room and bumping off other humans, I just think it's terrible. So it's an enormous unlock for some people, giving them the flexibility. And I do think that there should be a new classification for caregivers and companies should go out of their way to give them the ability to work remotely. But there's some, for example, in Europe, a much greater percentage of people are coming into the office. The office lease problem isn't nearly as big in Europe because public transportation is more widely available.

9:28So, you know, someone with a family can sometimes live near the office or they have universal childcare. So someone can go into work and not have to be at home. So I think this is an enormous unlock. I do think it is the structural change coming out of COVID. If you look at almost everything. Mortality rates, the economy. And you didn't know COVID had happened. You wouldn't know COVID had happened except for one thing. And that is the percentage of people who are no longer going into the office. It is really a structural change. It is. Let me just ask you, let me just ask you one question. It is young people that like remote more, I've noticed, among workers.

10:07They don't want, they want to be at home. And I know you say they have to, should be at work, and it's good for social life and sex life, et cetera, et cetera, and mentality. But I got to say of all people, older people like being in the office because they're used to it and they know the benefits of it much more so. Even if it helps, you know, it's easier for me or Amanda or anybody else to work from home because of kids. I find that young people really like their remoteness much more so. And this is anecdotal, but I think it's true. Yeah, I'm going to, I mean, I'm just going to sound like such a boomer here.

10:39I think it's, quite frankly, I think it's inversely correlated how ambitious they are. The kids I work with, and this is all anecdotal evidence, the kids I work with at Prof G, they're all these very highly credentialed, very ambitious, very economically and professionally super ambitious people. When I said to them, anyone can come to, I came to London, anyone wants to come to London can. First thing they did, they got a co-working space and they go into an office together. I find that people who are super ambitious, and I want to be clear, there are a lot of unlocks and everybody talks about productivity.

11:17I don't buy it. There's something that cannot be replaced. If you're a tech journalist, kind of working on your own and you can talk to people and get your sources over the phone, fine. You're a sole contributor, a lone wolf. For academics, fine. They can do it remotely. Yeah, it's Kara Swisher. But for a lot of industries, the magic of being in there. I ran consulting firms. I can't imagine doing it remotely. I'm not exaggerating, Kara. Three or four times a day, I would impromptu get someone's eye contact and say, oh, I need to talk to them about the P &G account. And I would grab them, would jump into a conference room, and we'd start talking.

11:52Or if I had free time, I would grab the other two partners in the firm, pull them into a conference room and go, what's going on with Colin? How's he doing? What's going on with this account? What do you guys think of this idea? The magic and mystery and entropy of in-person dialogue, it's really hard to replace. I agree. Okay, so let's make the prediction. Mine is that it's going to accelerate because people like it and it's good for people's lifestyles. Yours is, it's not going to or it is? What is your prediction? Oh, no, it's plateaued and it'll actually check back a little bit and more people will be in the office.

12:24Well, we're opposite of that. I mean, it's a step change. It's not going anywhere near back to where it was. I mean, I used to, it used to be, I remember Morgan Stanley, my, the lead secretary or whatever they call them now that's politically correct. If I wasn't in the office by 10 a.m., they would call you. And if you weren't at a client meeting and it was on your calendar, if you were in by, if you weren't in by 10 a.m., it was a paid day off. It counted towards your 20 paid days off a year. I mean, it was like, there was no negotiation around this shit. No, I was in the office from 8 a.m. I was in the office to 8 a.m.

13:02till midnight. I was. I was when I was a young reporter. Anyway, so we do have opposite opinions about that. I think it's accelerating. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Predictions around gig work at DEI and more.

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13:50Scott, we're back with our special series on the future of work. We're giving our predictions about the trends, and we're discussing it too, that shape employment and the workforce. Let's get on with our next topic, the gig economy, one we talk about a lot too. Some stats for you here, 64 million Americans freelance last year. That's about 40 % of the workforce. Statista predicts that'll grow to half the workforce by 2027. Gen Z and millennials make up the biggest age group of the gig economy. The industry with the highest proportion of freelancers is arts and design, followed by marketing, according to Upwork.

14:20I'm gonna go first here. This is something I've talked about for years. Everyone's going gig. You know, I think that's the way it's going to be, partly because companies want to save and they want more work flexibility. The other, partially people like it. Years ago, I said people will have a dozen jobs as opposed to four, something like that. I think people like it. They're used to it. It's another shift, just like being out of the office. And I think it's absolutely going to accelerate. And young people, again, are used to this. This is how they do not think of work as a place they're going to be forever.

14:56The next thing and the next thing. I think it is a bit of a shame because I do think it's nice working for a company for a while as a group of people on a team. It's less teamwork when you're doing stuff like this, but I think it's inevitable. Yeah, gig work or the number of people who identify as independent contractors is up by a third since 2016. It's gone from 27 % of employees to 36%. And I think it's part of a larger trend in that is, in some ways, it's smart. I think young people have figured out that you shouldn't be loyal to an organization. If you're a young person or in a culture like Japan, you think of the company as your dad and not going to work for a big company is deciding not to have a mom or a dad.

15:39It's just ingrained into their culture. And I think young people traditionally have been insecure thinking, oh, I don't have a parent company to kind of manage certain aspects of my life from healthcare. to, you know, certain boundaries or, you know, the American corporation is a great platform. But I think this new generation says, I am my own platform. I can go on LinkedIn. I can find jobs. I have my own skills. I don't need to be. I mean, I do respect the fact I've always thought loyalty to organizations is basically part of a myth fomented by old people who want young people to go to war and kill themselves to protect their land.

16:18Because the organization itself is not animate. It's not sentient. It's not concerned with the condition of your soul. It's not going to take care of you when you're older. So if you don't find a company that makes it worth it for you to not have gigs outside of that job and creates constraints on you that you don't like, young people have more confidence and more access to gig work. And I think it's great. Where I think gig work turns ugly is when regulators don't force a certain level of wage requirements or this bullshit like, you know, fast food companies try to pull a fast one and get people to clock out.

16:53I think Uber for a long time was exploiting immigrant labor and basically turning their cars into a payday loan by not insuring a certain level of minimum wage. So just as the economy is developing around this, I think you are going to need certain levels of protection for them. And also, we just need some level of portable, accessible health insurance, because one of the things that ties people to regions and to companies, which is bad for the economy because you want to take human capital and allocate it to its greatest resource, is they're worried to leave their company or leave their region because they're worried about losing their health care.

17:28Yeah, so prediction. You imagine this is going to accelerate, that that's going to happen? Regulators are going to require that? Oh, gig work's going to go up. The percentage of people doing gig work? Oh, it's going to go up. Young people are more confident. They have more access. The platforms that used to sequester them from a big... I mean, when you were 20, 30 years ago, where did you even advertise your services? Did you take out an ad in the classifieds in the newspaper? Now you put on your LinkedIn profile. Now you put up a website saying, I'm a visual designer, or I'm a landscape architect, or I'm a world-class accountant.

18:01And you buy some search terms, put up a nice website, talk about it on LinkedIn, maybe write a few articles on Medium or on Substack, and boom, if you're good, people will find you. People like to live elsewhere, too. You know, everyone who's worked for me at Code, they used to be in the Bay Area, like my friend Leah Lorenzano, who was an amazing, ran a lot of our stuff, is living up. Right now, she's covered in snow in Tahoe, but she wanted to live up there, and that's where she lives. She has a very thriving business from there. Like every single person who worked for me in a much more traditional way, although they were all contractors, is much different in much different situations.

18:36Living elsewhere, doing other things. Again, it's a much more, it's an easier way to live and you get a lot more options. Okay. Up next, something you and I have discussed before, bachelor's degrees versus technical and vocational training, and which will become more valuable. Just to break down the difference, technical and vocational training, also known as trade schools, tend to be shorter program focused on specific practical skills rather than theoretical knowledge. From a four-year liberal arts curriculum. The cost of vocational training can be anywhere from a couple thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

19:06The cost of liberal arts degrees, of course, from a private university can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A recent New York Times guest essay argued that the rise of AI could lead to a bigger demand for soft skills because the technical stuff will be handled by AI. I think both, but I do think that we have got to lean, we will be leaning into technical and vocational training. It's where the jobs will be. It's where AI doesn't touch things really as much. And that it gives people dignity of work, especially people who cannot afford a four-year college education who don't want it in a lot of ways.

19:38And I think a lot more young people will be vying for a very different way of working. This happens in Europe all the time, okay? It's looked at as a good thing, workers like this. And I think it's a good way to stop people from becoming radicalized, especially workers who are becoming much more radicalized in a weird way of conspiracy theories and all kinds of stuff. And I think it's a great way to build a strong society. And I think we should be leaning into it. I think we will be leaning into it. And it's where the work is. Scott? I'm a big fan of vocational training. And I think that we have shamed and because we've become so obsessed with tech and elite colleges and we fetishize them that we no longer have wood, metal, or auto shop in high school.

20:24I think a lot of young people, specifically a lot of young men, quite frankly, just aren't cut out for college. And that doesn't mean they shouldn't have on ramps into the middle class. So there's just absolutely no doubt we need more opportunities for vocational programming. And also parents need to stop shaming themselves and their kids and forgive everybody if your kid is one of the two thirds of American kids that does not end up with a traditional four year degree. Having said that, and I don't think this is a good thing, and it's one of the unfair things about America, but if you have the opportunity to go to a good four-year liberal arts education and you can afford it, I just don't think I would take advantage of that experience.

21:11because there is something about, I was installing shelving. I didn't get into UCLA and I was installing shelving. And I was making 18 bucks an hour, which was a lot of money in the early 80s. And I would have gone on to live an okay life. But I got in on appeal to UCLA because the admissions rate was 76 % then. Now it's 9%, by the way. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but that four years of marination, that four years of broken heart, that four years of meeting great friends, that four years of history of America with Robert Dalek, that, you know, those biology classes, those philosophy classes, it was amazing marination and gestation for me.

21:52And if you have the opportunity to do that and you think you would enjoy it, I just would never discourage anyone from doing it. Having said that, not only some, but the majority of kids aren't cut out for it and that's fine, but we need, we absolutely need more past. The problem with some of these technical schools is that their degree mills masquerading as technical schools. So I think the answer, and I'm involved in this and I'm voting with my wallet, is to take our great public school infrastructure and stop this snobbery held by the faculty and the administrators of UCLA and Berkeley should have two-year programs in specialty nursing.

22:32That's fine. That's okay. Some kids can't afford it. They should have one-year programs in specialty construction for nuclear power plants. They should have 18-month programs in cybersecurity and also maintenance. Pickleball court. Whatever it might be, maintenance for HVAC, energy-efficient HVAC. The jobs are out there. So it's a nuanced answer. If you have the opportunity and you're inclined, you're a good, much less a great student, and you think I would just... The American College land grant four-year experience is a singular experience. It is wonderful. It's not for everybody. And for those people, we have to provide them with more opportunities.

23:11So prediction, you think the government will put more into this or companies will? The bloom is off the rose of these elite institutions and the self-aggrandizement and arrogance known as university leadership and the transfer of wealth that we have affected by treating our universities as luxury brands, not as public servants. The bloom is off the rose. and both our leadership, our funders. I mean, I'm just seeing a lot of people. I'm one of them. I used to give money to universities to fund scholarships for, the last one I did was scholarship. I'm doing a lot of virtue signaling right now, but the last piece of money I gave was scholarship for the children of immigrants.

23:50Now I'm like, no, we need to change this model. We need to start helping young men and young women. They're just not gonna get a four-year degree. That's called two-thirds of American kids. So what, are they just fucked? Does everyone just live in shame? And we know this. You know parents who their kid goes to school for a year. They want to impress mom and dad. And guess what? They're just not cut out for it. And the immediately inclination of all your friends and neighbors and the parents is, oh, the kid must be mentally ill. He's struggling. She's struggling. No, they're just not cut out for college.