AI and the Future of Work: Utopia or a New Kind of Loss?

The fear of AI is not an irrational fear. We've never seen anything that can do the things this can do and doing it at the speed that it is with the pressure of moving on before we even understand it. And I want to talk today about why it might be awesome, you know, like why there could be a utopia coming up.

And so like it can, I just want to acknowledge the fear is, and I fear it too, we won't have jobs anymore because AI can do our jobs and it's happening now.

Once we have something that can work harder than anyone can work hard, I'm worried about our labor force. I want to talk about sort of what I think that system could look like. And if we get this right as a government and society in a world, as business owners, you know, as stewards of the AI, like there's a lot of people have to get a lot of things right. Like maybe this could actually be really cool and worth it. Welcome to the Soul Proprietor Podcast. I'm Curt Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Hello, Melody. How are you today?

I'm good, Curt. I'm doing good. How are you?

I'm doing really good, actually. A lot of stuff that's happening in my life right now, watching things for my kids that are going well. I'm watching things with employees that are going well. I've got employees that just bought a house, got engaged, one's having a baby soon. Like, there's just a lot of really cool stuff happening around me right now.

Well, I just got back from a lot of travel, and I'll talk about that in a second, but I just had Facebook bring up a memory of when I bought my holiday lights company. I had made this like announcement with my team, but we did a funny video because I'm a weirdo, and it reminded me how much I missed all of those employees. So I posted it and I was like, this was one of the best. Thank you for putting up with your weird boss. And then My employee Lindsay said, Mel, I miss working with you so much. You were the best boss, and that was the best job. And I think about it all the time. I was just looking at our Renew Holiday Lights yearbook that you made us because I had made them a picture book.

They all had their own yearbook page and pictures of all the things we did. And it just reminded me, like, oh, we do have impacts on employees' lives that we— we're all moving forward all the time. We don't get to always— hear about that or live in it. And that made me feel really good.

Yeah, that's awesome. It is good as an entrepreneur. I feel like, you know, as much as we talk about some of the craziness with AI coming on, I do feel like the entrepreneurial role is going to still continue on pretty strongly. Unfortunately, it'll, you know, there's some downsides to what it'll do for the rest of the humans producing within our businesses. But one of the things that's exciting is that this business can become a place for people to learn and grow, and like professionally and personally.

Well, and everything has a layer of creativity. AI has layers of creativity. Every aspect of our businesses as entrepreneurs, we are always reinventing, thinking of bigger, better ideas and solutions. And so that doesn't change with the evolution of work. And there's always been an evolution of work. I wanted to say, I was in Boston on Saturday, we like, when we were having a nor'easter, we went to Boston to a mastermind and it was A lot of the old people that I had started out with in my old business network of Josh Latimer and Brandon Vaughn, the Conquer Group. And that was really nice. And honestly, it doesn't matter who I'm learning from.

I can always take in things and learn from it. And it reminded me of all the basic things that I haven't been doing. Not even basic, but it was like, you know, you can't take it all in when you're learning it. So like sitting in a room with 40 other people and being like, oh, This is what I need to be doing right now, or this is where I need to be focusing. And then it was just really cool. And then right after that, I flew to Indianapolis, and it was an all-women's conference for the trades. I've never been to anything that had a majority of women at it when it comes to home service world, ever. Not even close.

I've been to women's events, but it wasn't focused like that. 600 women. And it was amazing. Amazing. Imagine, remember how you would go to, like, you know, the huge convention or whatever, and you saw a lot of people that were just like you?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what it was like. And it was so cool. The speakers were just absolutely phenomenal. It was just a very business-focused but, like, inspirational— I always say not pink, but I like the color pink. But you know what I mean when I say not pink. Not MLM.

That's really cool. So you hadn't shared that detail with me before we went on. That must have been the thing you were saying you wanted to—

Well, no. What I was going to tell you is I've always said I worked in an industry that was predominantly men or historically men. But it makes it just a statement of fact. And maybe you don't feel any of this, but all of the women in the room who heard that were like, oh, like, because we've all experienced— everybody in that room works in very male-dominated spaces. But now we work in industry that has historically been dominated by men.

Yeah. And the word dominate has a gravity to it.

That's what it is, that word. So she probably even gave us a different word that I've already forgotten, but I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer to the thing.

But it also kind of leaves room then for you to sort of have a USP because you're a woman. So, you know, I may not be a man, but I am a woman. And like that whole idea.

Yeah. But you know what, Curt, when I was younger, that was not a USP. It was actually— I remember people feeling like I couldn't do it, like clients. Sometimes I didn't get hired for commercial jobs because honestly, I found that out from through other places. So that's not the same way it is mostly nowadays. But after 30 years in that industry, a lot is changing fast and a lot has changed. But it doesn't mean that my brain doesn't hold on to historical data. Right? And that's what I'm always trying to release.

I'm always trying to release the story. It is a truth, and it's also a story, and it all depends on how you look at it. But it was an amazing conference, Women of HVAC. The swag was— we don't have that kind of swag where we come from. No, like, they have big companies like Lennox and Bosch, and— but they were doing things like embroidering, like, little bags for women, like if you wanted to, and you could make like little keychains that you could put beads on. It was very female-focused. I got the best pizza cutter I've ever seen in my life and so many USB charging things. And, but like, these are high-value things that I got.

I'm really stuck on that pizza cutter thing. Like, very interested.

I've had the same pizza cutter. It's a plastic pizza cutter, but it's the best pizza cutter. We just keep sanding it or quote unquote sharpening it, but I sand it so that it'll continue to be sharp. But it's been like 10 years. And this is a plastic one again, but it's like rolls. This other one didn't roll. So I've upgraded.

Does it have ball bearings in it?

Yeah, it has like all the things.

Come on, ball bearings?

No, it doesn't.

It's like, dang.

They had like blankets they were giving away and backpacks and it was just crazy. So I had brought a bag with a little more room because I knew that that might be a thing, but I was shocked.

Well, that's really cool. So I want to tell you why I love pizza stuff so much. I don't know if I've talked to our audience about this, but I think I'm going to save it for our topic because today's topic is going to lean into, you know, why I love pizza so much.

I had no idea. I'm so curious to see how you bring that all together.

I am big into it. So let's introduce what we want to talk about today. You know, last few episodes I've been thinking about when we talk about AI, both of us are users of AI. It's just ironic, right? Like neither one of us is like boycotting AI, but we do talk about it in pretty realistic, I think, terms of some of the negatives that are, you know, the safety concerns.

Because we're very, we're integrity-first kind of people and we recognize there's a lot of gray area there.

Yes. And I think that the ethical questions are coming at us faster than we can answer them. Certainly, maybe even personally, but certainly as a society, you know, getting people to agree around it. So the fear of AI is not an irrational fear. We've never seen anything that can do the things this can do and doing it at the speed that it is with the pressure of moving on before we even understand it. And, you know, I've always said it's going to be okay. Everything's always okay. This is the one time though, that this is so uncharted.

We've always built tools. Like when we built a cell phone, we're like, wow, this is really doing away with a lot of our old ways of doing things. And there was a lot of upset and concern there. The difference was that the cell phones didn't start building the cell phones, started building the cell phones, started building cell phones, which started to replace people in some sort of like uncategorical way. And with all of that, I think that the lens we've been looking through has been, you know, pretty fear-based. And I wanna talk today about why it might be awesome, you know, like why there could be a utopia coming up. Does that make sense?

It does. And before we do that, the only way I can have this conversation is by just disclaiming it first, because we have lived in the fear of it. I don't think I'm an alarmist. Most of the time I'm an optimist and I kind of see the best in things is how I kind of look at it. The majority of my life. With AI, I just know too much, and you probably know too much now too. And so it's hard to unknow. It's hard to see only the good things when we know too much.

And so like it can, I just wanna acknowledge the fear is, and I fear it too, we won't have jobs anymore because AI can do our jobs and it's happening now. We already see the concentrated power. Like that is a real concern. Misuse already happening all the time. And it's changing us all very, very fast. And it's not healthy.

We're doing things that just, it's clear our bodies were not designed to do.

Yes. I know there's so many other things, like, I don't even want to go to the darkest places of what it is.

Yeah. And let's not. That's not what this episode is.

No, I'm not. I'm literally not. But I have to acknowledge that because if we're going to have a conversation where I get to be dreamy, I have to get it out of my head and out of my mouth that I know, I know everybody.

The problem is I think this disclaimer's going to keep coming up.

No, that's why I have to say, I think it won't come up if I've said all of this upfront.

So I'll add that I believe that in the age of AI, we've talked a lot about how once we have something that's smarter than anyone who's smart, and once we have something that it can work harder than anyone can work hard, I'm worried about our labor force. I also mentioned at the top of the podcast that as entrepreneurs, whoever's invested in the AI system, those entrepreneurs, I don't know if there's room for small business, but I know that the decisions that businesses are going to have to make is essentially replacing the economic labor engine with AI and robots and all that stuff, I think, coming forward. And I feel like as much as we love being entrepreneurs, I'm concerned that when we talk about the utopia we're going to talk about today, the place to get there as an entrepreneur will probably involve a lot of layoffs, I'm not wanting to lay my people off until I know I'm sending them to a system that is developed for them. Like, there's a lot on my mind that way. I want to talk about sort of what I think that system could look like. And if we get this right as a government and society and a world, as business owners, you know, as stewards of the AI, like there's a lot of people have to get a lot of things right. Like maybe this could actually be really cool and worth it.

Well, let's set the scene. Let's look 20 years in the future. Because we have to be able to envision, like, they solved the problem. The bots are under control and the agents, and they know how to keep it under human control. And all of the people who were bad in this world came to Jesus or whatever. And now everybody is on the same path and everybody is aligned that this is better for everybody.

You're making this, like, feel very unrealistic. No,

no, it's all realistic. I mean, we're dreaming, Curt.

Okay. We're dreaming 20 years into a future that could exist on a timeline.

But like the dynamics of power, like I'm thinking big, maybe that shifted. Maybe we don't view power the same way anymore. And in a good way.

Actually, that's one of the things that I jotted down today, power and things.

Yeah. So like, I'm not saying it in a cynical way. I'm like, I really do believe there are a lot of good things that could come if the right things are happening along the way. And we can't forget the power of the people. We do have power as people. And something popped in my head really quick as you were talking earlier is the labor force, the workforce, and how that's going to change. I think back to being a window cleaner and how much it has affected my body for the rest of my life, right? How many times I pulled a muscle or strained my back or all of the things. And, you know, if we have robot labor forces in the future, we can be healthy maybe.

That's my first bullet point is health. So let's draw the assumption that people, governments, or whatever has some sort of like minimal but healthy financial standard coming in. My parents would freak out if I use the word communism, but like some sort of way where everyone's getting paid.

Social democracy?

Social democracy. I don't know. All I know is, is that everyone's got money enough to survive and have enough.

Because we're shareholders of the AI that has taken all of our knowledge. And now we're being paid for that knowledge.

And then there will always exist people. So those people are going to be people who've traded in a life of drudgery, going to a job they don't care about, driving to this thing, having a boss that sucks, just doing what they have to, to get by. All those people immediately, I think, fall into this new category of you got enough, you don't have to do anything for it. It just happens because the GDP is huge because economically the engine is absolutely humming and it's very efficient. That's the key here, that the AI is smart, fast, and cheap. That's the line of superintelligence. So assuming we've crossed that line, it's 20 years from now and everything is working awesome.

Can I ask a question though? I honestly can't wrap my head around, like, I know labor is the product and I have never understood how if robots are doing the labor, how everybody's still making money. It's— I can't wrap my head around that concept.

For the purpose of this discussion, we've got to just agree that that's been figured out. The economic engine is spinning off tons and tons, and that I'm sure there is so much legislation that is at play here to make it work. But the amount of work getting done is so great and so cheap that it's like we're all living in a country where it's got very low cost of living, but very high Like amounts of it being done.

Ooh, do you know what this reminds me of is like, remember when we were younger and we never bought coffees every day and we didn't go to fun things every day and we didn't like, we really didn't have a life of leisure even in like the '90s, I feel like. And now I look at like the kids coming up and my kid and I'm like, wow, like they're spoiled. They want to get their groceries delivered. There's been so much of a shift of leisure in a way, but also being feeling like I have the right to go to a movie whenever I want.

And what you just described, like Amazon, the way that they've got their warehouses all set up with robots, like your groceries showing up at your door would probably be cheaper for a grocery store to operate under when it's fully automated, to have pickers going through and just delivering everyone their groceries on some sort of schedule. Now, there's also a class of people that I want to address, which is like the entrepreneurs or the people who Want more than the minimum.

Do you really think people are gonna want the minimum? Because I was thinking what happened from all of that is now there's a lot of people who have really pretty coffee shops, right? Like people are fulfilling their own dreams as entrepreneurs, either working in a coffee shop or having a coffee shop. Like not everything is gonna have a robot in it, right?

Right. I am gonna be making a case for later on for those people who work as drudgery. and that they don't like work. I'm going to make a case for why that group might be a lot bigger than we give it credit for. But I don't want to make it sound like everyone's going to be happy with that, because I think that would be hell for people like you and me.

No, I think it would be hell for most people to just sit around. Are you saying they'll sit around and do—

I'm going to tell you what they're going to do with their time. And I think you're going to— I'm going to win you over on this.

I believe you.

Now, the people who want to make extra are going to have to be invested in these systems. I don't think that the people who run the business will actually be smart enough to run the business correctly. They're just going to have cool ideas and then they're going to have to run it through some sort of thing that is trustworthy, which again, 20 years from now, this is, we've broken the distrust. You know, we as the less intelligent people are handily handling the people or robots and intelligences that are much, much smarter than us. And somehow that worked out great. But the person who's actually running the business in the CEO role, or at least the activity of the CEO role will be some sort of an AI, I imagine. But the connection of the person's personal investment and time and energy will be trusted into this thing that can actually kick off everything that needs to be kicked off in terms of the actual economic engine portion of the business.

That's already happening, by the way.

Yes. But what's not happening is, is that, that part before it goes into that part where the vision is had and then successfully like planned out, executed. Because, you know, if you've used AI, you've used probably a feature called Grill Me, which is to say, I have this idea. Now ask me all the questions that will help me unpack this idea. And I think that we'll take that a million miles further, but it'll be well thought out from a business vision. I

don't even think they'll have Grill Me because AI will already understand you on so much more historically. Like, It will be the brain of you. Like something else will have every memory that you have, because that's what it doesn't have right now. For our lifetime, there hasn't been wearables and things like that, like things that are actually recording and seeing from our perspective or hearing from our perspective what our life is. And I do believe that at that point, for sure, because I already have an AI brain with all of my things, and it's my memories that I'm choosing to give it as I continue, right? But it will know all those things already. So I believe that you'll be able to give an idea and it will already know how you would want the idea to go.

I agree, but I still think that as the visionary, there will always be market conditions that need to be taken into consideration, new technologies that have come out that need to be weighed in.

AI will handle that. AI is going to do all of that.

I just think that there is, there's too much nuance.

I don't think there will be.

Now, Will it be the same nuance that we deal with today? I'm not saying that. I'm not saying it'll be the exact same nuance of today. I just think that a lot of times it knows you, but you're still trying to discover this idea.

Yeah, but you're talking about now and I'm talking about 20 years in the future.

No, I'm talking about 20 years in the future.

I think 10 years in the future, maybe, maybe, but I don't know. There's no way that it won't understand all of the way our thought patterns are. even like our biological patterns, because those also relate to how we think at certain times as well. And it's going to have all of our data. It'll have all of our biological data because we already wear wearables for that as well.

But we're not just biology. We're also like, we're growing and changing hopefully as well.

Like, I think it's all going to be data. I'm not saying that because I want that. It's because I believe it will happen.

Well, regardless, for the purpose of this conversation, we got to get to health in a second. And I just want to set the stage that I think there'll be a path for people who are totally cool giving up any contribution to the economic engine and just being dividend, you know, receiving recipients.

There's already people like that.

Yes, there are. The difference is it'll be super socially acceptable.

Well, it is super socially acceptable. There's a lot of very wealthy people who just live off of their dividends already.

Okay. What I'm talking about is entire ghettos. I don't know what the proper term is, but entire subdivisions of people who get in their car and go to work every day or work remotely, doesn't matter, but they drudge through work every day to make it work. I think it will become extremely acceptable to just receive the dividend. Now, for people who want more, I think there'll be a path for the people who want more. And if you're rich as someone who's crazy rich, obviously, and this is something I hope gets fixed in the next 20 years. I don't want it to be, you know, the 6 main rich people in the world running the whole globe. But hopefully for those who want to contribute and invest, there'll be a path for them.

The difference will be that it just will not make sense as an entrepreneur to hire a team. I just can't imagine that that would be the way you do it. Now, that isn't to say that there won't still be like the coffee shop you're talking about where people don't want to buy from a robot and someone wants to buy it from a human.

I think the personalization is going to be the business.

Yeah. And so in that case, actually, I take it back. There will be people who are doing it for the love of the game. But being unemployed is no problem. Unemployment's fine and great, but employment will be something that you're just doing because you love it.

Could it just be called volunteering also?

No, because there's going to be an economic advantage to doing it.

But then that's still the, our main system of capitalism. I don't think that's going to probably be able to exist in the same way, or if at all, in this kind of future.

I think you're right. There might be components of what we've described where people are working for free as volunteers. I just want to give some runway for people who are looking for a little extra pocket cash.

Why would we need it?

Because I think there will always be more that you might want. So I want to paint a picture for people who are on the minimum and still loving life. And then I think beyond that, there'll be like people who are like, have a little nicer thing or something.

Why couldn't we just all have nice things in this utopian future?

Because I think that there's got to be some sort of like level where everybody's at that, you know, again, in utopia, it gives them everything that they want. But I just can't imagine there aren't people who are willing to work harder to have the more luxury.

I have done a lot of jobs where I've gone above and beyond without the money because I love doing the thing. I love the creativity, right? If I had enough money right now, I would do lots of jobs for free, like just because I want to be creating. I'm a creator.

And if that's the motivation that you have, then I think you'll be very happy in the world that I wanna paint a picture of today.

But it'll still be Businesses.

Somebody's going to be economically benefiting from it.

Maybe. We may have not invented yet the way that our economic— I'm 20 years in the future, which is really like 1,000 years in the future in AI years. That's how I'm feeling about this. And so I'm trying to widen my scope as much as I can. And there has to be a way. Like, I think my version of utopia was everybody in the world has what they need. And beyond that, they have ways of getting more.

Does Elon Musk have everything that he needs?

And then some.

Why does he keep going after more?

He's power hungry and he loves the game.

Okay. What about the person that lives a few streets down who has a really nice job and their house is not median? Why are they working so hard to have a house that costs 4 times more and they pay 4 times the property taxes and they have cars that they have to get special parts from Italy for? Why are they doing it?

I can tell you exactly why. Because they haven't been in enough therapy. They haven't done any of their inner work. And everybody has access to these. And it's like the same as not having a job will be the same as like working through— like, as a recovering workaholic, Curt, I truly believe that a lot of people work. And this is kind of like not only psychology, but research. A lot of people are driven not by the desire for like— it's all tied to how we were raised and what we did not get. And what the values we were taught were.

Do you think it's an innate thing inside of us that some of us just want to be like hustlers and be workaholics?

100%. 100%.

See, I don't. I don't at all.

I believe that it totally exists, and I don't even think it's about inner work. And frankly, that wouldn't work as a society anyway, to tell someone that just because they want to work hard that they need to go see a therapist.

No, but that's all we've ever known. We were raised to work hard.

But all I'm saying is, is that why aren't all of us getting a 800-square-foot house paid off with all the food in the pantry that we need.

That's it?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. See, that's not enough for you?

No, no.

Well, what if it's 1,600 square feet?

No, minus 20.

What if it's 2,500 square feet?

Okay, that's getting better.

But if I want 3,500 square feet?

That's fine.

What if I want 5,000 square feet?

I have a feeling though that we're going to view the world differently by then because we'll be having houses in the sky, Curt.

You're missing the point I'm trying to make.

You think there should be still levels? There should be capitalism.

People will be given what they're given. And then they'll say, I've got all this time on my hands. I don't want to be at the beach. I want to do something that makes my life a cut above. It will probably end up being how far I can travel or how nice my house is, or do I have the nicer groceries that are not built using that?

That's how we've been brought up. But do you never envision a world where everybody feels like there's enough?

No way. No way.

Why?

No, because the same thing that you were brought up with is not the same thing that so-and-so else was brought up with. And I don't care how many years go beyond, everyone's house is a little bit different. The way that they expect things is a little bit different. The way that they're parented and taught and what's normal is different. So when you, government, put out that this is the standard that I'm providing for all of you, I think there'll be a large number of people who will say, as long as they're eating and drinking, they're, you know, have a roof over their head and they're comfortable, I think there's a lot of people who will say that's fantastic. And I think there'll be another group of people who will say, I need to do something to make my life even better than that.

I want to do a side note here. This might be the first real conversation where we're going to disagree a lot. I feel like you're too attached to our current reality. That's my view.

I think our current reality is built upon the way that the human psyche works. That's not going away.

I mean, when you look at the way that our world has changed over like 400 or 500 years, let's say, I can't go much farther back than that. Probably even like 400 years or 500. Yes, there's always been a, like, people at certain levels, whether it was by birth or by power, like make working your way into power. But I feel like it's also because we've never had enough. Like we've always struggled as humans to just get by. And this is like the first time I feel like maybe in the '50s or '60s or '70s, but we're starting to get to the point where people in our country, at least, are starting to have enough. There's plenty of other countries that they're not even close to having enough to survive.

They're the most happy people, as a side note.

But I'm middle class and I'm still struggling.

So, Mellody, if you had me come over to your middle-class home and you said, hey, Curt, you're a landscaper, will you build me out a backyard? And I say, here's an option with a pool, it has a pool deck around it, poured concrete, all that. And then I say, now the concrete gets hot during the summertime around the pool, Would you like me to put pavers around the outside of it?

Yes, please.

Oh, you do want that upgrade? Okay. Now I can also make those travertine so that they're actually even nicer and they'll look white and it'll have this really cool look to it that looks really fancy. Do you want that?

Sure. The robot's doing it, so it doesn't matter.

The travertine's a fixed material. Like we only have so much travertine in the world.

Yeah, but the robot made it and the robot invented a new type of travertine.

Okay. But it does cost more and you're going to be using your fixed income to determine how much you really want that.

I think I'm taking this thought exercise too far because I've already created ways in my head that The AI already invented a very cheap way of making travertine tile.

Okay. But you're not allowing for the fact that there are still the constraints of supply, demand, resources on this earth, because the earth only has so much oil in it.

But the power of AI is that it's going to create—

So we're just going to keep knocking mountains down, pulling travertine out of them.

No, we can't even imagine what it can create right now. We can't even imagine that Just like, Curt, 3 years ago, could you have imagined what you would be doing with this technology right now?

No.

Not even close to being possible to imagine it. It would be crazy if anybody had said that. How do we know what AI is capable of? We have no idea.

I agree that I don't know. I just know humans enough to know that whatever is good and standard will never be good enough for certain people, especially if I'm given a certain amount to survive on. And I choose to use, like, I just have a non-negotiable. I will have a nice mattress, right? Like, that's important to me.

I think everybody should have one. Well, I think I know what the problem is here. You know, humans of right now, and 20 years actually isn't far enough in the future because the same humans will still be here in 20 years. And I'm thinking beyond, I guess. I was thinking more of like the ultimate utopia of what AI can deliver.

In reality, every time someone's had money in this world, They don't rush to be like, all right, I've got enough. I'm going to give the rest of my money to other people. That's not how we're going to do it.

But this is utopia.

Not in utopia because there's still people. I'm talking about a system that's created, not about going into everyone's brain and basically overriding their own natural tendency.

20 years ago, or let's say 30, because that's more typical. 30 years ago, did you understand mental health at all? Did you even hear about it?

No.

Did you know that people were on meds? And if they were, were they crazy?

I knew someone who was bipolar when I was in high school.

And what happened with that person? Like, if you really think back, maybe not you, what did society think of somebody who had bipolar at that time? I know what they did because I experienced it. People were scared of crazy people. We were called crazy people. And so I'm looking now at how quickly we have evolved at understanding, not only understanding mental health, but also like just accepting it more. It was a very quick transition. It's actually from probably when TikTok was invented until now. Imagine 20 years in the future, we are going to be 100x-ing whatever we've just come through in terms of understanding. That's why I say I believe humans will be different because we are different already.

And I know you're talking more about power dynamics and things like that. I have to believe in utopian societies that I am trying to believe in, because I think we're doing 2 different versions of utopia. I'm doing real utopia in my view is we figure out and we don't care if somebody has more or less, like if we want more, we just get more.

I'm talking about a societal systematic change that can be made by those who have the power to do so. Without the ability to go in and actually fundamentally change how humans are designed and operate in the worldview that I have seen throughout my life.

But we're going to be very different by then.

We've got too many thousands of years of the way people are, and we've got a trend that I'm watching right now, and I just don't see a way to get inside everyone's head and make them desire different things.

I don't think that's possible in 20 years for sure. However, TikTok has changed a lot of people's minds very quickly, and I don't say that lightly. I truly mean That 5 years ago, I didn't really know what perimenopause is, even though I was going through it. And now every woman I know in the entire universe talks about it nonstop. And we're all real mad.

But I think that's another thing is that awareness of something like, okay, cool. We know about mental health. Okay. We don't think everyone's crazy. Okay. But who's rushing to give their money to people who are struggling with mental health?

I mean, like we do that. You mean like who's rushing like people?

Yeah. Like who has changed their actual life and desires and trajectories? And yes, I understand there's altruistic people we can take on the end of the belt.

You just mean normal people. Normal people, for the most part, even rich people, they're just trying to survive the world because we all have this mentality of we're just trying to survive. Some people say money can buy you happiness. Some people say it can't, but the wealthiest people also tend to be people who don't find happiness in all of that. That's why they keep going after the game. Or else why would people take their lives when they've got everything?

That's a perfect segue into like, so this is where I think utopia comes from. Let's get to the health part now that we've been trying to get to for 20 minutes.

We probably should have chosen a different word than utopia. We should have at least looked it up, Curt.

It's okay. I think for the listener's sake, You define utopia however you want. And Mel has kind of presented her version. I've presented sort of how I see it.

Wait, can I just say it's an imagined community or society that has near-perfect qualities for its people? But that's how I was imagining it.

Well, that's funny because I imagine it the same way, but not near-perfect qualities of the people. That's the difference for me.

I hear it. And that is very interesting because I, of course, go straight to People evolve.

Okay. No one has the pressure that they have to do something just to survive.

Okay. I like that world.

And they've got a good life. And with that health, we now have obviously cured cancer. And that's something they're talking about, even like one of the first things superintelligence will probably do. People are going to be living longer. Hopefully they feel a lot better. You know, that's obviously something we could talk about as being a dark thing. I think—

I was cutting it off, Curt.

But imagine that this is a good thing. Everyone feels great. We're doing all the things that we need to. If we do get sick or we do have problems, getting the care that we need is the same as having the robot mechanic that comes to our house. It's equipped with the same intelligence that will be able to give us the right care. And all—

I've watched shows that show me what that future can look like.

Yeah. The Jetsons?

No, I was thinking of like, other shows where you just go into a machine and it fixes you.

Yeah. Okay, so health. I feel like everyone is just feeling good, and we've cured so much of the problems that we have.

Would we have cured the mental part of the problem?

I would have to imagine.

But then we would have cured the problem with why people need power too.

I don't know that that would ever be classified as a mental disability. Because when I say mental challenges, I'm talking about diagnosable—

You mean health problems that are not in our brain besides cancer because our mental, like our brain, the thoughts, the feelings, that part of our brain, that is the mental health part.

If you were diagnosed with like bipolar or autism or whatever, like those are things that people get diagnosed. No, people don't get diagnosed with, okay, you're a narcissist. If you go in and you find out that you're a narcissist and you say, I'd like to be cured of this, I don't want to be a narcissist anymore. I believe that there would be treatments available for you.

Yeah, but then we would have to believe that everybody's brains would be changed by then.

And the concern though is, is that what if I told you, well, then cool, you don't have to be gay. That's a mental disorder. What would you say to that?

Well, it's not. So.

Okay, exactly. And what if I said, I really enjoy power? I don't view that as a mental disorder.

But that's not the same thing. But they're not. When you're born, you're born a certain way, but you're not born with the need for power.

I think that the person who wants to be cured would determine whether or not what they have is something that needs to be cured.

We probably shouldn't talk about health so much because it goes way dark, because then we end up with a very white society of perfect humans. You know, like nobody has a disability, nobody has mental health issues, and they live

forever. How bad could it be? You'll never die and you're around all these people who are just like you. And I think that's the key component to a utopia, is that you have to embrace the diversity of people. So We need to determine we feel good.

I think if we defined utopia as, I think you're saying everybody just has a basic income and it's comfortable.

Yeah. Survival is no longer something that people think about.

Yes. But then if you're not thinking about survival, that doesn't mean you're happy. It means that all of the DNA, all of the biology and the history of our cells and everything are now going to be focused in a different place. Like my brain scan just showed, and that's not a good thing necessarily. So what are we going to be doing?

All right. So that's the cliffhanger that we're going to leave you on for today. And as you can tell, Mel and I got really deep into this debate about AI-driven utopia and what it could look like. And it was just too big for one episode. So we're going to go ahead and split this into 2 parts. Next week, we're going to talk more about if AI is going to solve all of our economic needs, then how are we as humans going to actually find meaning with one another? And then we'll talk more about community, human nature. And I'm going to explain why I was so obsessed with Mel's new pizza cutter earlier on in the episode. So make sure you tune in next week for part 2, and I'll see you then.

Thanks everybody for joining us at the Soul Proprietor Podcast. It has been an absolute pleasure having these discussions with you. If you wouldn't mind taking just a few minutes to rate and review us wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it would mean so much to us. We really do read each of these reviews and it gives us the opportunity to get The word out to more people who could benefit from hearing about topics like this and so many others. If you want to engage with us at our website and maybe share some topics or ideas of other people that you'd like to hear on the podcast, feel free to go to soulproprietorpodcast.com and share with us your thoughts and ideas about what we could do in the future to bring even more light into the world.