How to Prepare for the AI “End Game”

Over the past few weeks, the conversation around the human impacts of AI has hit the mainstream. Recently, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could wipe out up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. Some, like Former President Barack Obama, saw this as a wake-up call. Others, like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, pushed back, arguing that AI will actually create new jobs.

Regardless of where you stand, there’s growing recognition that AI could impact us humans pretty dramatically. The conversation feels more urgent now than ever before.

A key question keeps coming up repeatedly:

“What’s the endgame? Is the future just a handful of ‘founders’ with AI agents for every existing role? It’s hard to feel motivated for the long term when the current culture is so heavily invested in talking about AI.”

This piece focuses on the bigger picture around AI and shares learnings from nearly two years of research on this topic. While there are no definitive answers about the future, there’s a lot we can anticipate based on what we already know.

What we’ll cover

• The four scenarios for an AI “end game”
• A look at the road ahead
• How our organizations and roles may change
• How to prepare for the future

Four scenarios for an AI “end game”

There are many perspectives on where we could end up with AI. Nearly all of them fall into one of these four “end game” scenarios:

Scenario 1: AI is irrelevant. Generative AI turns out to be overhyped and doesn’t end up actually solving many real problems. It becomes a niche technology at best.

Scenario 2: AI is transformative, but not superintelligence. AI becomes a powerful and transformative technology, but not a new superintelligence. It changes industries and society in much the same way that the internet, electricity, and other previous innovations did before it.

Scenario 3: AI is superintelligence → leads to abundance. AI is a new digital superintelligence and is well-aligned with human prosperity. It makes progress and scientific breakthroughs far beyond our imagination, cures disease, gives us all more time and ushers in a new human renaissance.

Scenario 4: AI is superintelligence → leads to catastrophe. AI is a new digital superintelligence, but goes wrong in one of a few possible ways: its incentives are not well-aligned with humanity, it ends up in the wrong hands, or in the most extreme scenario, it becomes sentient and renders humanity irrelevant (whether intentionally or unintentionally).

It’s widely believed we are already past the “AI is Irrelevant” scenario, and many argue we’re also past AI being just a transformative new tool and rapidly heading towards the digital superintelligence scenarios. Whether this is actually true remains to be seen, but it’s worth taking a closer look because it would represent something we have not experienced before with past technologies.

If we are in fact left with either Abundance or Catastrophe as our future scenarios, what would it mean for us? At the moment, no one knows exactly what each scenario would bring. But safe to say most people would prefer abundance over catastrophe.

To reach abundance and avoid catastrophe, we need to both maximize the benefits of AI AND minimize the potential for harm. There’s already a ton of focus on the former, but not enough on the latter. Most discussion has been reduced to a debate between AI “doomers” vs. “optimists,” which is neither accurate nor particularly helpful.

For those actively working in government, policy, or on frontier AI models, you may be in a position to directly shape where the technology goes. But what about the rest of us? Are we just passengers forced along for the ride? Not necessarily.

Even though the “end game” is not fully certain yet with AI, what is certain is that the next few years are going to be a time of massive change. We’ll need to understand the impacts of AI from many different angles across all disciplines—from education, health care, psychology, business, and beyond. The good news is “team human” is starting to mobilize, with many people now focusing on this topic. The more people share their experiences—both positive and negative—the deeper our understanding will become and the better positioned we will be to maximize the benefits and minimize the downsides of AI.

We have shown a remarkable ability to adapt during recent years, whether adjusting to life during the pandemic or responding to new ways of working with AI. The ability to change and evolve in this next era is within our reach.

A look at the road ahead

The near-term future is much clearer than exactly where we’ll end up. We’re going to move through a few different waves over the coming months and years.

Where we are today:

AI is automating basic, execution-level work, typically done by entry-level knowledge workers.

What’s next:

As more basic work is automated, human workers—especially entry-level workers—will need significant re-skilling. This is not just about learning short-term skills like “prompt engineering,” but rather focusing on more durable and uniquely human skills that are harder for AI to automate.

The future:

At some point, AI could also automate more advanced work, potentially with the assistance of humanoid robots that can handle physical labor, not just digital labor. This would move us much closer to one of the superintelligence scenarios mentioned earlier.

If we assume an era of abundance where AI handles all traditionally human work, we may need a new sense of purpose and identity. In this era, human connection will matter even more. It’s also possible that as we are inundated with more AI, there will be a backlash and uniquely human experiences will make a comeback.

It’s hard to know how rapidly this journey will unfold. Some believe we may see exponential acceleration and could see superintelligence within the next few years (known as a “fast-takeoff”). Others believe it could take much longer, if ever. We also don’t yet know how advancements in robotics, quantum computing, human-brain interfaces, genomics, and other emerging technologies will affect these trends.

Either way, it’s clear that our ways of working and skills are going to change.

How our organizations and roles will change

Organizations are already adapting to these changes and will continue to do so. Most fundamentally, as AI capabilities improve, we’re seeing an increasing push for automation in the workplace.

Most companies today are experimenting with automating singular tasks and workflows. They will continue expanding these efforts until more and more workflows are automated. The shift towards automation will likely progress as follows:

Tasks → Workflows → Job Functions → Organizations

Eventually, entire organizations may be able to run autonomously, powered by an AI team. We’re already seeing early signs of this in the startup world, with small 1-3 person teams building revenue-generating companies with AI assistance.

For larger organizations, we will likely see less hierarchy and leaner teams as middle managers are squeezed out and individual contributors are asked to do more.

As AI automates more work, what’s left for the rest of us? As AI handles more execution work, our roles will shift—from doing the work to reviewing the work to setting the vision.

This is already beginning to happen in fields like software engineering, where programmers are writing less code by hand and focusing more on reviewing code written by AI (also known as “vibe coding”).

If the future turns out to be many more small teams and solo creators working with AI agents, is that necessarily a bad thing? In fact, many people are tired of the politics and bureaucracy that come with large organizations. A world where people have more power and autonomy to build and create could be very liberating and exciting.

Research shows that the happiest workers are those at smaller companies. The key will be helping people navigate the transition from where we are today to where we’re headed—near-term job losses could be real, even if longer-term outcomes are positive. We need to ensure that people can maintain their livelihoods along the way.

How to prepare for the future

There is a lot we can do to prepare for an AI future. Unfortunately, most reskilling efforts so far have focused only on narrow topics that will quickly become outdated, such as learning “prompt engineering.” What’s needed is a more holistic approach that focuses on building a sustainable advantage for “team human.”

A. Redesigning our work from the ground up

Our ways of working are changing fundamentally. We need to learn to work with AI, not just as a tool, but as a team member. At the same time, as more work becomes automated, we need to build alternate career paths and income streams that are not solely dependent on traditional employment.

Learn to work with AI, not compete against it. Explore alternatives to the corporate path.

Beginner:

• Start by using ChatGPT and learning how to create effective prompts
• Try “vibe coding” with tools like bolt.new or lovable.dev to build simple projects

Intermediate:

• Learn about AI agents
• Pick one time-consuming workflow or process and build a simple AI agent to automate it using tools like Gumloop or Zapier

Advanced:

• Automate multiple end-to-end processes or workflows using AI agents
• Build a side project with AI and try to generate income from it
• Explore options for a “portfolio career”

B. Developing capabilities AI can’t replace (as easily)

In an age of AI where we’ll all have the ability to create anything, the power of our ideas will matter again. Building leadership capabilities and “soft skills” to guide AI and influence other people continues to be one of the highest ROI investments we can make for today and the future.

Leadership, judgment, creativity, taste, empathy, storytelling, and collaboration are uniquely human skills that will matter even more. These are not all that different from what most managers and leaders need to master today.

Beginner:

• If you’re a student, focus on building leadership capabilities via group projects, teams, and extracurriculars

Intermediate:

• Become multi-disciplinary (if you’re in a product role, learn more about design and technology, and vice versa)
• For mid-career professionals, explore resources like Wes Kao’s newsletter

Advanced:

• Invest in executive coaching

C. Cultivating identity and purpose beyond work; investing in human connection

If you had unlimited resources and time, what would you do with it? If AI truly brings an era of abundance, those with a sense of clear direction and purpose will thrive. Our creativity and human connection will matter even more in a world where identities are not defined by work. Perhaps in-person experiences, art, and uniquely human experiences will usher in a new renaissance.

Some practical starting points:

• Spend more time reflecting and investing in purpose and creativity
• Do a “digital detox”
• Seek out opportunities for in-person connection

The road ahead

Adapting for what’s to come will not be easy. But by engaging thoughtfully with this transition, we can help ourselves and others navigate each step of the journey.

After everything learned so far, there remains a strong belief in the power of team human. By working together, we can help each other adapt and build towards a future of abundance.

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Additional Resources

If you want to understand why AI might be different than past technologies, consider this example: to build a tool that recognizes photos of cats, past systems would be programmed with fixed rules like “2 ears, 4 legs, etc.” But AI doesn’t need explicit instructions—it learns similarly to how people do. It analyzes thousands of cat photos, finds patterns on its own, and improves over time. Now imagine it does that not just with cats, but with all the world’s information. That ability to learn, adapt, and improve without being told exactly what to do is what makes AI so different and why it could eventually become superintelligent.

Here are some good resources if you want to understand the topic more deeply:

Beginner:

• The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence
• Video: The AI Dilemma
• The Gentle Singularity

Intermediate:

• Video: AGI Is Here You Just Don’t Realize It Yet

Advanced:

• Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead