A viral X essay ricocheted around the tech world last week. Written by a young tech founder named Matt Shumer and titled “Something Big Is Happening,” it told readers that “this might be the most important year of your career.” Shumer argued that AI was about to bring the world of work a disruption as sudden and dislocating as the shutdown at the onset of Covid—but even more comprehensive. And it would be permanent. The essay received more than 80 million views.
We are on the edge of a precipice, Shumer claimed, urging that anybody who wasn’t fully taking advantage of AI in their work needed to start doing so immediately—and that everyone should get their finances in order to prepare for the upheaval that is very quickly coming. His argument hinged not just on predictions of what was coming, but on the power that AI has already attained. If you’re not maximizing the use of AI, you will soon be obsolete. Or so Shumer says.
Shumer’s essay seemed to catch a big change in the mood of the tech world. That AI is transformative is no secret. But for those closest to the tech, the changes suddenly seem to be happening with lightning speed. Are we in fact on the edge of the great AI cliff? And perhaps more directly: Should we be terrified? We asked some of the best thinkers on AI—both believers and skeptics—a simple question: Is something big happening?
