From coders to creatives: Jon Gray breaks down potential winners and losers of the AI era

"It was the famous scene where Dustin Hoffman's character gets pulled aside by one of his parents' friends at his own college graduation party for some awkward career advice. "I just want to say one word to you," says the Mr. McGuire character, "Power." In the original scene, McGuire said, "plastics," reflecting the space-age economy of the 1960s. The message behind Gray's edit was that power is the new plastics in an age of electricity-hungry AI."

"Gray compared the AI revolution to two other massive economic changes: the industrial revolution and the dot-com boom. Both eras reshuffled the deck for labor, with farmers laying down their shovels and moving to the factories and software developers growing at the expense of encyclopedia salespeople, causing some industries to boom, some to contract, and previously unimaginable jobs, like social media influencer, to be created."

"The message behind Gray's edit was that power is the new plastics in an age of electricity-hungry AI. Gray made the comments as part of a presentation to explain Blackstone's plan to generate returns off the AI boom while avoiding reckless, overexuberant investments. In doing so, he made a case for which professions are most likely to thrive in the AI boom, which won't likely be affected, and which stand to be massively transformed."

A clip of The Graduate equates 'power' with importance in an electricity-hungry AI era. Blackstone's plan focuses on generating returns from the AI boom while avoiding reckless, overexuberant investments. The AI revolution is compared to the industrial revolution and the dot‑com boom as a labor-reshuffling force that will create winners and losers, accelerate job transformation, and produce previously unimaginable occupations. The change is expected to be faster than prior technological shifts; ChatGPT reached 700 million users faster than any prior product. Some jobs, such as software engineers and customer service agents, may already be at risk.

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