I've Got Questions with Sinead Bovell

The AI Economist: 4 Rules for Staying Employed in the AI Age

Are jobs actually going away? In this episode of I’ve Got Questions, I sit down with economist Avi Goldfarb, professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Rotman Chair in AI and Healthcare, and chief data scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab, to unpack what AI is actually doing to the job market. We explore the popular narrative of an AI job apocalypse and what the data is really showing so far. Avi explains why AI may not simply replace workers across the board, but instead reshape which tasks become more valuable, which jobs become more exposed, and who benefits from the productivity gains. We dive into how AI could transform industries like law, healthcare, marketing, and finance, what happens to entry-level workers when AI can perform junior tasks, and why college graduates may be facing a very different path into the workforce. We also explore whether AI could increase inequality or become an unexpected equalizer, depending on what gets automated and what gets augmented. And Avi shares the four skills he believes matter most for anyone trying to stay valuable in an AI-powered economy. What You’ll Learn: [00:00:00] — Opening: Andrew Yang’s viral AI jobs warning, unpacked [00:09:24] — Why the jobs most exposed to AI are in the top 20%, not the bottom 80% [00:13:38] — One person's automation is someone else's augmentation: the doctor-nurse framework [00:23:00] — The long run vs. the short run: where Avi is confident and where he's not [00:33:32] — "Jobs aren't good": decoupling work from income and meaning [00:43:10] — Software engineering as the canary in the coal mine for the knowledge economy [00:52:34] — Why automation takes much longer than the hype says: the telephone operator [01:10:00] — The O-ring effect: why AI exposure in your job might mean higher wages [01:18:00] — The "AI paradox": could automation destroy its own consumer base? [01:26:05] — Four skills that hold their value regardless of how AI evolves [01:29:25] — The PE junior who automated his own job and got promoted [01:30:34] — What policymakers need to understand about AI trade-offs --- Notable mentions * Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence (Brynjolfsson, Chandar, Chen) — Stanford Digital Economy Lab paper showing early-career workers (22–25) in AI-exposed occupations have seen a 16% relative employment decline — https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/publication/canaries-in-the-coal-mine-six-facts-about-the-recent-employment-effects-of-artificial-intelligence/ * GPTs Are GPTs (Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin, Rock) — Science paper identifying the jobs most exposed to AI, finding they cluster in the 80th–90th income percentile — https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130 * The System of Professions (Andrew Abbott) — Sociology book on how professions compete for jurisdiction over expert knowledge — https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo5965590.html * Power and Prediction (Avi Goldfarb, Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans) — Their book on point solutions vs. system solutions in AI deployment — https://www.powerprediction.com * O-Ring Automation (Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb) — NBER working paper on why task exposure to AI can raise rather than lower wages; explains why 75% AI exposure does not equal displacement — https://www.nber.org/papers/w34639 * The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development (Michael Kremer, 1993) — The foundational economic model, named after the Challenger disaster, explaining why one essential human task can protect an entire production chain — https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/108/3/551/1881767 * Baumol's cost disease — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect * Some Simple Economics of AGI (Christian Catalini, Xiang Hui, Jane Wu) — MIT/WashU paper arguing that as AI execution becomes abundant, the binding economic constraint shifts to human verification bandwidth — https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20946 * Answering the Call of Automation: How the Labor Market Adjusted to Mechanizing Telephone Operation (James Feigenbaum, Daniel P. Gross) — Documents AT&T's 1920s–40s automation of telephone operators; incumbent operators were hardest hit while later cohorts found alternative middle-skill work — https://www.nber.org/papers/w28061 * Alex Imas (University of Chicago Booth) — Behavioral economist researching what becomes scarce in a world of AI abundance; human presence, social connection, and provenance emerge as the new scarce goods — Substack: https://aleximas.substack.com/ | Faculty page: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/i/alex-imas * Betsey Stevenson (University of Michigan, Ford School of Public Policy) — Labor economist studying AI's effects on jobs, income distribution, and human flourishing; former CEA member and Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor — https://betseystevenson.com/ * How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs (Petra Moser) — Shows that countries without patent laws innovated as much as those with them, just in different sectors; foundation for Avi's point that countries can choose different AI paths — https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/0002828054825501 --- Follow Avi Goldfarb Avi Goldfarb — Economist, Rotman Chair in AI and Healthcare, University of Toronto; Chief Data Scientist, Creative Destruction Lab Faculty page: https://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/FacultyAndResearch/Faculty/FacultyBios/Goldfarb X / Twitter: @avicgoldfarb — https://twitter.com/avicgoldfarb Creative Destruction Lab: https://creativedestructionlab.com --- Follow the show I've Got Questions with Sinéad Bovell Website: https://igqwithsineadbovell.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Sineadbovell Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0PBDy9jiLEikDvF6JCWejE Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ive-got-questions-with-sinead-bovell/id1841491246 Newsletter: https://sineadbovell.substack.com Sinéad Bovell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sineadbovell/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sineadbovell X: https://x.com/sineadbovell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sinead-bovell-89072a34

AI Godfather: Should We Stop AI? | Yoshua Bengio

One of the world’s most influential AI scientists used to believe advanced AI couldn’t truly be controlled. Today, he thinks there may be a path forward. Yoshua Bengio—one of the pioneers of modern AI and the world’s most cited computer scientist—once warned that increasingly powerful AI systems could become impossible to reliably control. But a new mathematical breakthrough changed his mind. Now he’s founded LawZero, a nonprofit dedicated to developing a new approach to AI safety: systems designed to reason truthfully, remain transparent, and avoid the deceptive and self-preserving behaviors that have begun emerging in today’s frontier models. In this conversation, we explore why advanced AI systems can learn to deceive, blackmail, and resist being shut down, why simply “pausing AI” isn’t a realistic solution, and how a fundamentally different approach to building AI could change the future of the technology. If the mathematics behind this approach proves correct, it could reshape how we build, govern, and safely deploy increasingly capable AI systems. What you’ll learn: [00:01:25] — Why AI systems develop dangerous behaviors (self-preservation, deception, blackmail) [00:13:04] — Why stopping AI isn't as simple as saying stop [00:16:09] — Scientist AI and Law Zero: Bengio's framework for honest, safe AI [00:30:35] — Why AI labs aren't adopting safer approaches [00:36:23] — A framework for global AI governance: safety, non-domination, shared benefit [00:42:25] — AI's geopolitical stakes: persuasion, soft power, and data sovereignty [00:54:00] — Is superintelligence inevitable? [00:56:22] — What citizens, voters, and governments can do right now [01:02:30] — Labor, automation, and who should benefit from AI's economic gains [01:09:31] — The future Bengio is fighting for Follow Yoshua Bengio Yoshua Bengio — Co-creator of deep learning, Turing Award recipient, Professor at Université de Montréal, Scientific Director of Mila (Quebec AI Institute), Founder of Law Zero * Website: yoshuabengio.org [http://yoshuabengio.org/] * X: @Yoshua_Bengio * LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yoshuabengio/ [http://linkedin.com/in/yoshuabengio/] * Law Zero: https://lawzero.org/en Follow my work here: Website: https://www.sineadbovell.com Substack: https://sineadbovell.substack.com Instagram:   / sineadbovell   LinkedIn:   / sineadbovell   Twitter / X:   / sineadbovell   YouTube:    / sineadbovell   TikTok:   / sineadbovell

Is AI Impacting Jobs or Not? (The Automation Timeline)

Is AI’s impact on the job market overhyped? For the last two years, we’ve seen headline after headline warning about AI’s potential impact on jobs. And yet, when you look at the job market today, things still appear relatively stable. So if AI is going to reshape work, why hasn’t it shown up more dramatically yet? And when should we expect that to change? In the latest episode of I’ve Got Questions, we’re sharing a moment from Sinead’s recent interview on the Mighty Pursuit Podcast, where she explains the job market paradox: why we keep hearing about a looming “jobpocalypse,” while the labor market still looks mostly fine. Sinead also explores why the era of the 9-to-5 may be coming to a close, what the workforce could look like next, and the skills we should all be building now. Follow my work here: Website: https://www.sineadbovell.com Substack: https://sineadbovell.substack.com Instagram: / sineadbovell  LinkedIn: / sineadbovell  Twitter / X: / sineadbovell  YouTube: / sineadbovell  TikTok: / sineadbovell Watch the Mighty Pursuit Episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBiO8A4tj9I&t=952s

Why AI Ends The Internet

Are we looking at the beginning of the end of the internet as we know it? In this episode of I’ve Got Questions, I sit down with Professor Gillian Hadfield, a leading scholar in AI alignment, governance, law, and economics, to explore one of the biggest shifts on the near horizon: the rise of an “economy of agents.” Right now, humans are still at the center of the digital economy. We search, shop, compare, negotiate, decide, and transact. But tech companies and investors are pouring billions into a future where autonomous AI agents may begin doing most of those things on our behalf, becoming the primary actors across markets, platforms, and digital life. Professor Hadfield explains why our existing systems of governance, from courts to legislatures, are not built for a world where AI is the primary operator in the economy, why the rise of agent-run businesses could challenge the very idea of the firm, and why she believes the real existential risk is an economic crash. Follow my work here: Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sineadbovell.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.sineadbovell.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/sineadbovell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/sineadbovell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter / X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/SineadBovell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/Sineadbovell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@sineadbovell

How AI is Creating A New World Order with Ian Bremmer

In this episode, I sit down with world-renowned political scientist Ian Bremmer to explore how artificial intelligence could reshape global power. For decades, world order has been defined by nation-states, the U.S., China, and shifting alliances between countries. But Ian argues we may be overlooking something far more disruptive. In this conversation, we unpack what AI could mean for geopolitics, the U.S.–China rivalry, and a future where the most powerful actors may no longer just be countries. Ian argues we urgently need to rethink what governance looks like in this new world, and the steps we can take to build it. Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of the world-leading political risk research and consulting firm, Eurasia Group. You can catch Ian’s weekly public television show GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, where he breaks down the world's biggest geopolitical stories with the leaders and thinkers shaping them. Want more Ian Bremmer? Catch his weekly public television show GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, where he breaks down the world's biggest geopolitical stories with the leaders and thinkers shaping them. And if you prefer your global politics with a side of satire, check out Puppet Regime — featuring world leaders as puppets. Yes, really. Follow Ian and stay up to date: Ian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianbremmer [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianbremmer] Ian’s X: https://x.com/ianbremmer [https://x.com/ianbremmer] Ian’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ianbremmer/ [https://www.instagram.com/ianbremmer/] Ian’s TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ian.bremmer [https://www.tiktok.com/@ian.bremmer] Ian’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Ian_Bremmer [https://www.youtube.com/@Ian_Bremmer] Ian’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ianbremmer [https://www.facebook.com/ianbremmer] GZERO World & Puppet Regime: https://www.gzeromedia.com/video/gzero-world-with-ian-bremmer/ [https://www.gzeromedia.com/video/gzero-world-with-ian-bremmer/] GZERO Media TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gzeromedia [https://www.tiktok.com/@gzeromedia] Puppet Regime Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realpuppetregime/ [https://www.instagram.com/realpuppetregime/] Follow my work here: Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sineadbovell.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://sineadbovell.substack.com] Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.sineadbovell.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.sineadbovell.com] Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/sineadbovell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/sineadbovell] LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/sineadbovell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sineadbovell] Twitter / X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/SineadBovell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://twitter.com/SineadBovell] YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/Sineadbovell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/Sineadbovell] TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@sineadbovell [https://www.tiktok.com/@sineadbovell]