#095 - AI: Anarchy or Abundance? with Rob Garlick

This week on GAEA Talks, Graeme Scott sits down with Rob Garlick, former Head of Innovation Research at Citi and author of AI: Anarchy or Abundance? Why the Future of Work Needs Pro-Human Leaders. Rob spent 28 years at Citi and was at the front row for the Netscape and Google IPOs.Filmed in our new London studio, this is one of the most economically grounded AI conversations on the show. Rob's argument is that this wave is fundamentally different for three reasons - pace, scope and nature of change - and that the biggest economic trade in history is now being made in front of us. People are the largest line item on most corporate P&Ls, and AI now offers a way to substitute them. That is great news for shareholders. It is not automatically great news for people.Topics covered:The three reasons this wave is different: pace, scope and nature of changeMilton Friedman's 1970 shareholder primacy essayCharlie Munger on incentivesThe Engels pause of the Industrial RevolutionHumanoid robots with a payback period of under ten weeksOpenAI agents beating experts 70% of the time at 11x speed and 99% lower costThe economic singularity and the risk of wage collapseUniversal Contribution Income (UCI) as an alternative to UBIRob's BEST framework starting with better jobsEinstein and Bertrand Russell - "remember your humanity and forget the rest"