Andrew Mayne has been a lot of things: As OpenAI’s original prompt engineer, he taught people how to use chatbots like the ChatGPT series. He is a widely read novelist (34 books so far), a podcaster, magician, consultant, venture capitalist, — and a man who dives with sharks.

He is also a man who believes that “the future of AI will expand human potential rather than diminish it.”

In this, he presents a sharp contrast to Elon Musk.

Musk has advocated a universal income scheme to combat the mass unemployment he predicts will come from AI adoption.

At the recent tech execs’ meeting with President Trump, Musk appeared to back away somewwhat from that gloomy approach, predicting only that “ AI will significantly alter the workplace.” But his circumstances—he was part of a tech lobby asking the White House to get involved with thorny industry issues—hardly favored tactlessness.

In any event, the critical question is what will change? And how?

Mayne takes a more optimistic approach

Mayne, who left OpenAI about a year ago — as one of a string of nearly two dozen key departures—offered some thoughts in a recent CNAI short at YouTube:

[7:09 min] A question I often ask people is, “What is a job that used to exist that you wish you had today?” … So, let’s go through some quick rapid fire. Thomas Edison [invented the] phonograph. “Oh my god, it’s going to destroy music! If you can just play music, you’re not going to hire musicians! …

Poor Taylor Swift. What’s she going to do?

Oh… become a billionaire.

These things created new opportunities. It expanded the music industry in something you could never even conceive. The fact that there going to be more demand for people, not less demand. And I’ll explain why those things make sense.

Indeed. In the days before the phonograph, chanteuses like Swift did not become billionaires. They were lucky to end up as landladies.

Mayne discusses this in more technical detail in a recent essay for Reason Magazine:

Even with continuous technological disruption displacing and destroying other industries, the United States gross domestic product has more than doubled over the last 20 years, from $11 trillion to $27 trillion. If you compare the U.S. to the slightly more technophobic European Union, you can make the case that Europe’s limits to technologic growth—through legislation and through risk-averse investment strategies—is one of the factors causing slower economic growth (Europe’s growth rate was 45.61 percent compared with 108.2 percent in the U.S.).

This was the problem India created for itself after achieving independence in 1948. The government enacted so many laws to protect jobs (the “License Raj”) that it stalled the country’s economic development for decades, nearly lost millions to famine, and got eclipsed by the Chinese.

“Zero unemployment in an AI economy,” April 1, 2024

Historically, Mayne is more likely to be right than Musk

The past is not prediction. However, technology advances have not generally reduced jobs. When farming was mechanized in North America after World War II, farm kids moved to the city and its suburbs. They got jobs downtown that hardly existed before—in factories, offices, and service businesses. Colleges, entertainment, and leisure centers all boomed. As living standards rose, so did life expectancy. As a result, industries catering to seniors blossomed.

So here’s a classic outcome: The deskbound executive is told by his medic to get more exercise. He hires a fitness coach. A century ago, his great-grandpa, along with the great-grandpa of the fitness coach, both got plenty of exercise—forking hay and driving a team and six…

For their descendants, jobs did not disappear; they changed.

What if the fitness coach was a robot? Well, someone would still have to build, sell and service it. And, without the human coach to praise and motivate the executive, the experience just wouldn’t be the same. As long as we are rewarded for meeting the needs and wants of others, there will always be employment.

Find out more about a plausible jobs future at COSM 2026

Mayne will be discussing all this and more as it concerns the white-hot political topic of data centers on Wednesday, November 18, at 4:00 pm at the Westin Kierland in Scottsdale, Arizona: “ Capex (capital expenditure) Conundrum as it concerns AI Data Centers and Distributive AI ”

On Thursday, he will also be joining Josh Achiam, another OpenAI “alum,” for a Fireside Chat — “Foretelling the Future: AI Boom or Bust?” — on Thursday, November 19, 9:00 am.

Register here. You can still get the standard rate.