I replaced my assistant with AI + My thoughts on UBI

I spent 10 hours building an AI automation that was able to replace 100% of the tasks that my human assistant was doing for me. That's right, not 50%, not 70%, not 90%, but 100% of her job. And in this video, I'm going to talk about how I did that and what the implications of implementing AI and automations on a massive scale into our businesses will mean for society and also our economy. I've read all of I've seen the headlines where it says AI and automations is going to replace 87 million jobs or 150 million jobs depending on which article you're reading and who the economist is that's doing all the estimates. But it just felt like an impersonal statistic. It never really hit home for me until this week where I was on the other side of the table and I had to tell someone that they're no longer going to have a role in my company because it got taken over by a bot. And finally it hit home for me, and finally I felt the power of this technology. Over the past 2 years, I've been so heads down focused on how to create the best automations that can achieve these real results, but I never stopped to think about what the implications on some real people's lives could be. And that's what I want to spend today in this video talking about. I know most of my videos are on technical how-tos, and I steer away from anything remotely controversial on this channel, but I feel like this is such an important topic that I just can't avoid anymore as an AI and automations Creator. Now let me tell you how this whole thing started. I started to think about how can I streamline my customer service. I'm in meetings a lot, and I have a lot of different projects on the go, and I hired a part-time assistant, but she also has some other clients as well. So between the two of us trying to answer emails, the customers were still getting responses anywhere from 12 to 24 hours later, which I just didn't think was the best customer service experience, and I really wanted to bring down that response time. So I started thinking about, okay, how can we streamline this process? The thought of actually creating an AI automation actually didn't occur to me, but as I was building out the procedure of what this process looks like, essentially I was thinking in my head, if I was to explain this to a 5th grader, how would I explain this process? And then it just clicked for me. Wait, why can't I automate this? This is what I teach. Why don't I do what I preach? So I looked at the last 100 emails that came through to our inbox and I created a spreadsheet with the actual email and what the response would be, and I trained an OpenAI assistant on all of this data. I also made a list of FAQs for this bot to learn. Then I stringed everything along in a Make automation. If you emailed my support email in the last week and you spoke with Stephanie, I'll let you in on a secret. Stephanie's actually not a real human. She's actually an AI automation, and I'm super proud of her. She has been able to reduce the amount of inquiries I get in my inbox by about 50%. And just yesterday, she actually closed her first sale. That's right. She got someone to actually join my school community, which is really exciting because of how great the AI automation worked. I actually had to let go of my human assistant. For reference, I was paying my human assistant $1,000 a month, but my bot assistant Stephanie only cost me about $50 to $60 per month. When business owners start implementing AI and automations into repetitive processes into their business, They can see a 90 to 95% reduction in cost. So it just doesn't make any sense for you to not implement it. But at the same time, as more and more businesses—large, medium, small—start to implement this, we're going to start having double-digit unemployment. And that's what I want to talk about today and how you can prepare for the AI age that is surely to come. There's no stopping this beast anymore. But what we can think about is how we can prepare for it. Let's take a look at the equation for. GDP. So GDP is equal to C plus I plus G plus NX, where C equals consumption, I equals investment, G equals government spending, and NX equals net export. When we start to see double-digit percentages of the workforce losing their jobs to AI and automations, we will naturally also see the level of consumptions go down, which shrinks the overall GDP. And when more people are unemployed, it also means the government is collecting less tax revenue from those people. And it could be this downward spiral where the GDP continues to lower. So in order to reverse this trend, governments will have to naturally step in and stimulate the economy. Based on past data, there are 3 ways that government can actually stimulate the economy. They can lower interest rates, they can borrow money through the form of bonds, and 3, they can actually print more money. However, each of these methods will come with its drawbacks. For example, if the government continues to print more money, we'll have more inflation. And in extreme cases, we can run into a situation of hyperinflation, like what we have seen in Venezuela or Zimbabwe. And the devastating effects of hyperinflation could actually last for generations. Another popular solution that have been put forth to combat the effects of AI and automations on the labor market is this concept called UBI, or Universal Basic Income. What it is that it promises a basic living wage to everybody. Supporters of UBI will say that it creates a higher standard of living for the population as a whole. It gives people access to more resources, better healthcare, better food, and for women facing abusive situations, they will now have the means and resources to leave those abusive situations. However, opponents of UBI will say that it doesn't actually create true productivity in the economy as a whole, and it gives people less incentive to actually work. So it will actually lower productivity. Now, where do I stand on this issue? Well, although I do not support UBI, I do not see another solution. I don't see another way that governments can solve this issue. I would love to know your thoughts though. So let me know below. Now the essence of UBI is for companies that benefit the most from AI automations and robotics to pay extra taxes. And that tax will be distributed to the people who get replaced by this new technology. But AI is kind of like the 4th industrial revolution. And unlike the previous industrial revolutions, it's much easier for companies to get up and leave. In the past, when you start a business in a country, you generally have an office or a factory. And to actually move those structures will take millions of dollars and a lot of time. However, with most things AI, it lives on the cloud, it lives on the internet. So it's very easy to get up and leave. So perhaps by implementing extra taxes on business owners, that would actually just make more of them disappear. Because a lot of business owners that I speak with also think, well, why am I getting punished for working harder? And why is more of my hard-earned money being given to other people when I may or may not support that initiative? And who likes more taxes, right? So increasingly in the past couple of years, we've also seen people forming Plan Bs, especially 7 to 8 figure entrepreneurs. In fact, YouTube channels dedicated to this topic have hundreds and thousands of subscribers. Some popular ones are Andrew Henderson with Nomad Capitalist and my good friend Raphael over at Wealthy Expat. So on one hand, we see the entrepreneurs forming Plan Bs just in case UBI is implemented so that they don't have to pay those high taxes. And on the other hand, we have a lot of people who are scared of losing their job to AI and automations. So will implementing UBI really help the people who got replaced, or will it just drive the entrepreneurs out of the Western countries and go where they're treated better in other jurisdictions where they're not taxed to death? I don't know the answer, but I would love to know your thoughts below. But I will say this though, if your whole plan is to depend on your government to come and save you in case your job got replaced by AI and automations, that is probably the worst strategy that you could take. I would not put my future and my well-being and my livelihood in the hands of someone else. So how can you prepare for AI and automations? Well, I would first learn the skill set and really understand it. There are things that just can't be replaced by AI, so I would either look at working in AI— so we can't stop the party, might as well join it— or work in an industry that can't be disrupted by AI. The first step is to learn this technology and then form a plan to think out where do you fit within this new economy post-AGI world that we're going in. If I look at this like a Venn diagram, on one circle I have what AI can do, on the other circle I have what you're good at, and the intersection is what you should be focused on. Now, in my past career, I have taught project management for over 10 years, and in knowledge management, there's a concept called tacit knowledge versus explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge are things that are easy to codify. So I can create an SOP around it, and I can teach someone, I can just give that documentation to them. And they should be able to do that task. What's harder to communicate is the tacit knowledge, because this knowledge usually comes from someone's experience in order to complete a certain task really well. So you should be focused on acquiring more tacit knowledge in order to make yourself irreplaceable in the age of AI. In the case of my assistant, She was really just depending on me to give her all of the answers so that she can create an FAQ and just copy and paste whenever there's a standard response given. However, if she was able to understand the inner workings of my business and be able to come up with responses even when there wasn't an FAQ, it would have been much harder for me to replace her. At any job that you're doing, it's important to take a look at what are the steps in doing the tasks that you're doing and can it be standardized? If it can, then you're probably in trouble. AI can actually do a lot right now. There are now bots that can fold the clothing, there are bots that can drive, and we're even seeing the first AI software engineer that just launched about a month or two ago. If your job or business is at risk of being replaced by AI or automations, it's time for you to actually form a post-AGI career or business plan. And one important thing that you have to think about is which industry you're going to play in and how you can reposition yourself and change in order to still add value in society and continue making an income. I think right now it's great to start learning this skill set and start building some money from your AI and automation skill set so you have multiple sources of income. So no matter what happens in the future, you can be financially independent and be prepared for what's to come. I actually have a free course below on AI and automations to help you get started. So make sure you sign up for this. I recently read a report that said that there are actually 2 industries that will not only not go anywhere in the post-AGI era that we're moving into, but actually thrive. And those 2 industries are AI itself and anything to do with the longevity of life. Also, when we take a look at AI, let's take a look at its drawbacks because we can't beat AI at its own game. We can't beat it at speed. We can't beat it at efficiency. We can't beat it at automating tasks. So what can we beat it at? Well, these bots do not have genuine emotion. It will never be able to empathize, empathize with someone. It will never be able to feel love. So the soft skills that you have become even more critical in the post-AGI era. Things like conflict management, leading teams, empathy, kindness, love. These are all skill sets that's going to be hugely valuable and differentiate you in the years to come. Lastly, I will say this: it's about mindset. Now, most of our lives we have gone through institutionalized learning in schools or churches, and they have all taught us to think a certain way. You have to work in order to get paid. You know, work in order to get paid. We also have to shift our mindset here by changing our mindset away from we have to trade our time for money will suit us very well in the AI age. All right, so those are all of my thoughts on AI and automations so far. I would love to know yours too. Maybe there's something that I haven't considered. So let me know in the comments below, and please make sure you like and subscribe. Thank you so much. Love you all. See you next time.