Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Vinod Khosla Says He Thinks Today's 5-Year-Olds Probably Won't Need A Job
Business Insider ^ | 3-5-2026 | Ben Shimkus

Posted on 05/06/2026 3:33:31 PM PDT by blam

* OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla predicts 80% of jobs will be done by AI by the early 2030s.
* The AI investor joins a list of high-earning executives who have warned about the future of jobs.
* He frames the battle between the US and China for AI dominance as a "techno-economic war."

Billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla says most of today's children won't need jobs when they grow up.

In a recent interview with Fortune Magazine, the Sun Microsystems cofounder and tech investor predicted that artificial intelligence will be able to do up to 80% of jobs by the early 2030s.

"It's pretty unlikely a five-year-old today will be looking for a job," he said.

Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, has built a reputation for making bold, well-timed technology bets. He was the first institutional investor in OpenAI in 2019, investing $50 million at a $1 billion valuation — the largest initial investment of his career at the time.

In the interview, released Wednesday, he argued that rapid advances in AI and robotics will make most labor effectively free within 15 years, creating an era of extreme abundance and lower prices. .

Instead of money-making occupations, he said, people will pursue their passions.

"The need to work will go away," he said. "People will still work on the things they want to work on, not because they need to work."

Referring to manual labor jobs like assembly-line roles and farm work, Khosla said, "Those are not jobs. Those are servitude."

Khosla is the latest in a line of Silicon Valley executives who believe that some of today's most sought-after jobs might soon fade.

(snip)

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: jobs; vinodkhosla; work
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last
To: blam

If true imagine an entire world of worthless creatures


21 posted on 05/06/2026 4:06:24 PM PDT by blitz128
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Does this fellow have a vested interest in making money off Ai ?


22 posted on 05/06/2026 4:07:55 PM PDT by escapefromboston (Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

The Star Trek economy. You think social problems are bad now wait until that happens!


23 posted on 05/06/2026 4:14:58 PM PDT by Reily
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: blam; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; ...
It's about time the little tykes started to pull their own weight, that's what I say.

24 posted on 05/06/2026 4:20:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: blam

They’ll all be soldiers in the next World War.


25 posted on 05/06/2026 4:24:56 PM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

This guys an idiot. Why live then? AI is going to make the dot com boom look like Romper Room in the financial sense...

And apparently all about 90% of its effort/development is solely to produce idiocracy humans and manage them for sales and “security”.

How big is your freakin’ yard blam? I’d do it for leas than that as long as it isn’t golf course sized 🤣


26 posted on 05/06/2026 4:34:03 PM PDT by Axenolith (Don't go to sleep next to watermelon sized pods with D's on them...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

I wasn’t even looking for a job when I was five, but I started my first job outside the home, picking berries, in 1962 when I was seven. My friends and I would walk about half a mile to catch the bus at 5:00 and we’d get home around 2:00. It was great getting out of the house, plus I could generally make about 12 silver quarters a day, which would be worth about $168 today. (Ignoring the change from silver coinage, that $3.00 would be equivalent to about $30 today from inflation only, still not bad money to a seven-year-old.)


27 posted on 05/06/2026 4:35:10 PM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
"People will still work on the things they want to work on, not because they need to work."

History teaches that most will sit around smoking pot and accomplishing nothing.

28 posted on 05/06/2026 4:35:49 PM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

Why would a billionaire need an employee?

The point of AI isn’t to improve labor. It’s to eliminate ppl.


29 posted on 05/06/2026 4:42:59 PM PDT by Justa (Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

They were predicting this for a long time.
Basically Marxism was build on that assumption.
But, no way!
I am sure, people will find a way to make money and keep themselves busy.


30 posted on 05/06/2026 4:46:40 PM PDT by AZJeep (sane )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

“Vinod Khosla Says He Thinks Today’s 5-Year-Olds Probably Won’t Need A Job”. I was delivering The Manhattan Mercury when I was six.


31 posted on 05/06/2026 5:06:56 PM PDT by kawhill (Dywedwch Wrthbym byecause + Add translation Welsh-English dictionary 'Tell Us')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Stosh

THOSE “SERVITUDE” FARM JOBS ARE FEEDING YOU, JERKFACE.


32 posted on 05/06/2026 5:07:57 PM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Presbyterian Reporter; blam

One thing/concept we’re probably going to have to work toward is the creation of several zones where people agree to “check backward” and operate at a level of technology that they mutually agree to limit at.

I’d have to do some noodling on the details (or write a book), but essentially if you’re in one, you can’t just level up if you’re suddenly incapacitated, ill, poor. You’ll make a cogent decision to enter an era and abide by the laws/technological limits thereof. You could expand/manufacture or restore that eras tech, but you couldn’t actually get out and reap whatever benefits there are in the at present timeframe EXCEPT for some critical life periods like age of majority, 35, 55 (arbitrary) or you could marry out.

There could be some form of trade out, in only for resources or recovered period items and out for finished human originated art/items/foods or tech considered collectable from the era.

Eras could be about 40 years apart.
1990’s (Jan 1 2000 cutoff)
1950’s (” 1960 “)
1910’s (” 1920 “)
1870’s Etc...
1800
1700
Aboriginal/Hunter Gatherer

(Hmmm I’m gonna hafta play with this idea)


33 posted on 05/06/2026 5:09:11 PM PDT by Axenolith (Don't go to sleep next to watermelon sized pods with D's on them...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: JayGalt

“Round the clock lounging & hobbies?”

A pharmacological/industrial complex could REALLY milk something like that!


34 posted on 05/06/2026 5:10:40 PM PDT by Axenolith (Don't go to sleep next to watermelon sized pods with D's on them...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: blam
"The need to work will go away," he said. "People will still work on the things they want to work on, not because they need to work."

People working on the things they want to work on take their cues from an environment where people work and work is valued. In the future, a lot of people are going to simply stagnated and vegetate if society allows them to do so.

35 posted on 05/06/2026 5:13:21 PM PDT by x
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: x

They’ll just get high and play video games all day.


36 posted on 05/06/2026 5:15:23 PM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Leaning Right

$50,000 just becomes the new zero in that scenario. He must understand economics better than that?


37 posted on 05/06/2026 5:19:34 PM PDT by Persevero (You cannot comply your way out of tyranny. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Jamestown1630
There will have to be as many people to support and maintain AI as AI displaces. There will always be work, as there always has been. Work will just change, again, as it always has.

Exactly. Only a condescending prick who has never gotten their hands dirty when working can make this stupid a prediction.

38 posted on 05/06/2026 5:20:00 PM PDT by Bruce Campbells Chin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: blam

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Did Yogi Berra really say that? Regardless, for a 5 year-old you are talking a decade and a half out.

Who in the past has accurately predicted labor trends with that kind of horizon? Why is this prediction different? Really, I am more of the opinion that we don’t really know how this will settle or what further disruption we will see.

I just might live to see it.


39 posted on 05/06/2026 6:02:19 PM PDT by jimfree (My 23 y/o granddaughter has more quality exec experience than most Dem pres candidates.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

Elon suggested the federal government would simply issue hefty checks for all, funded by AI bounty. I hesitate to say this about a man who is far smarter and far more successful than me, but this is incredibly naive and foolish. We see massive favoritism and corruption in current government spending and this is not going to change simply because the source of tax revenue changes. Favored groups will get paid, the rest of us will receive subsistence checks. And of course, massive amounts of money that should come to us will instead be diverted to the pet projects of politicians.


40 posted on 05/06/2026 6:07:24 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson