Living off investments

[Anonymous]

This might be crazy talk but with AI taking jobs I think work is going to dry up and stocks are going to soar as companies become more profitable. I don’t even know what jobs will be available in the near or long term and I’m starting to think seriously about living off investments and planning for my kids to do the same. I’m a lawyer and lawyers are cooked with AI.

[Anonymous]

You need to relax. The AI doom and gloom is ridiculous. On a lark I asked Chat GPT to write my Uncle’s obituary last week (he was a well-known figure in the city where he lived for 60 years). Chat GPT gave me a 100% fictional Obit! I’m not worried about Chat GPT anymore than I am about dinosaurs coming back to life lol

[Anonymous]

I'm coming from a slightly different place, but I see what you are saying.

We're DINKS at 51 and 52 with about 2MM and are pulling way back on spending and increasing our investments and savings thinking that in about 4-5 years we will be forced into this. We had been steady savers (late start, but about 80K a year for recent years) but not super focused on maximizing every penny but we've turned to that in order to really boost our savings/investments. I don't think you are crazy to build this idea into your planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to relax. The AI doom and gloom is ridiculous. On a lark I asked Chat GPT to write my Uncle’s obituary last week (he was a well-known figure in the city where he lived for 60 years). Chat GPT gave me a 100% fictional Obit! I’m not worried about Chat GPT anymore than I am about dinosaurs coming back to life lol

I work at a company where there is a huge focus on getting the prompts right. With that our US based workforce has been cut in half by attrition and buy outs. That's been replaced at about 50% with humans in India and 50% with AI. It's working well. I'm managing a team that will go from 14 people to 8 over the next year with no decrease in quality or production. Of the remaining 8, 4 will be in India. I'm at the end of my career and I can use the next 3 years to figure these solutions out and then be done, but what will be left is a huge reduction in US based workers doing the work that used to be squarely here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to relax. The AI doom and gloom is ridiculous. On a lark I asked Chat GPT to write my Uncle’s obituary last week (he was a well-known figure in the city where he lived for 60 years). Chat GPT gave me a 100% fictional Obit! I’m not worried about Chat GPT anymore than I am about dinosaurs coming back to life lol

Did you use a paid version? Did you input your uncle’s information into ChatGPT and then ask it to write it?

I don’t know what a well known figure in that city means vs a well known figure in general.

I wouldn’t expect ChatGPT (unpaid) to write a great obituary without prompts if my uncle had been the mayor of Peoria…but it would be different if my uncle was Henry Kissinger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This might be crazy talk but with AI taking jobs I think work is going to dry up and stocks are going to soar as companies become more profitable. I don’t even know what jobs will be available in the near or long term and I’m starting to think seriously about living off investments and planning for my kids to do the same. I’m a lawyer and lawyers are cooked with AI.

Not all lawyers are cooked. Bad transactional lawyers, low quality services are, low level drafting lawyers are, but there will always be a need for courtroom lawyers, and highly skilled/consulting lawyers.

Having said that, I’m also thinking hard about how to support them both financially and in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to relax. The AI doom and gloom is ridiculous. On a lark I asked Chat GPT to write my Uncle’s obituary last week (he was a well-known figure in the city where he lived for 60 years). Chat GPT gave me a 100% fictional Obit! I’m not worried about Chat GPT anymore than I am about dinosaurs coming back to life lol

Did you give it information to based its obituary from?

I use it all the time to summarize cases. I upload the decision and it does it extremely well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it hallucinate when given source text.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s helping lawyers too though.

Like I’m a client, not a lawyer, but it really really helps me not ask so many dumb questions of my parents’ estate lawyer. It did a great job teaching me the basics of their trust agreements. Google couldn’t do it as well because I didn’t know how to connect the scenarios I was asking about to the appropriate legal terms. ChatGPT was great at it.

Not that I would take its answers as final on anything, but it definitely helped me ask better questions in meetings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This might be crazy talk but with AI taking jobs I think work is going to dry up and stocks are going to soar as companies become more profitable. I don’t even know what jobs will be available in the near or long term and I’m starting to think seriously about living off investments and planning for my kids to do the same. I’m a lawyer and lawyers are cooked with AI.

Not all lawyers are cooked. Bad transactional lawyers, low quality services are, low level drafting lawyers are, but there will always be a need for courtroom lawyers, and highly skilled/consulting lawyers.

Having said that, I’m also thinking hard about how to support them both financially and in the future.

For corporate law I’m pretty sure AI is going to be able to do first drafts of SEC filings, various agreements, etc. AI will also be able to do case law research and first drafts of briefs, etc. It’s really insane and sad to me but I think my profession will be machines in the not too distant future. I think most white collar jobs will suffer a similar fate. I feel so bad for young people starting out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This might be crazy talk but with AI taking jobs I think work is going to dry up and stocks are going to soar as companies become more profitable. I don’t even know what jobs will be available in the near or long term and I’m starting to think seriously about living off investments and planning for my kids to do the same. I’m a lawyer and lawyers are cooked with AI.

Not all lawyers are cooked. Bad transactional lawyers, low quality services are, low level drafting lawyers are, but there will always be a need for courtroom lawyers, and highly skilled/consulting lawyers.

Having said that, I’m also thinking hard about how to support them both financially and in the future.

For corporate law I’m pretty sure AI is going to be able to do first drafts of SEC filings, various agreements, etc. AI will also be able to do case law research and first drafts of briefs, etc. It’s really insane and sad to me but I think my profession will be machines in the not too distant future. I think most white collar jobs will suffer a similar fate. I feel so bad for young people starting out.

Agree. But that won’t end law as a profession, just change it. Just like it did when research moved from the law library to online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to relax. The AI doom and gloom is ridiculous. On a lark I asked Chat GPT to write my Uncle’s obituary last week (he was a well-known figure in the city where he lived for 60 years). Chat GPT gave me a 100% fictional Obit! I’m not worried about Chat GPT anymore than I am about dinosaurs coming back to life lol

Did you use a paid version? Did you input your uncle’s information into ChatGPT and then ask it to write it?

I don’t know what a well known figure in that city means vs a well known figure in general.

I wouldn’t expect ChatGPT (unpaid) to write a great obituary without prompts if my uncle had been the mayor of Peoria…but it would be different if my uncle was Henry Kissinger.

Paid version, included relevant details and it spit out literal garbage. Of course some jobs will be replaced by AI but I don’t believe that jobs requiring critical thinking are in danger in the slightest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This might be crazy talk but with AI taking jobs I think work is going to dry up and stocks are going to soar as companies become more profitable. I don’t even know what jobs will be available in the near or long term and I’m starting to think seriously about living off investments and planning for my kids to do the same. I’m a lawyer and lawyers are cooked with AI.

Wow! I'd expect a lawyer to know their history better. With every innovation throughout history people have said this, yet the jobs just changed from one industry to another. This will be no different. Computers didn't create mass joblessness. Farming equipment didn't create mass joblessness. The industrial revolution didn't create mass joblessness. There is a period of uncertainty and jobs rise in a different industry.

Most lawyers are very well versed in history. I'm confused how you would get to the conclusion you did.

[Anonymous]

Remember when Segway was supposed to change the world? It's been 25 years and we're still waiting on that:
https://lompocrecord.com/news/science/segway-was-supposed-to-change-the-world-two-decades-later-it-just-might/collection_fa182ab7-6dff-5ff7-bfbb-20a8aeafcd0b.html#1

Or how about crypto? It's been around in a big way for 15 years now. When was the last time you purchased something using crypto?

Or how about computers? Did half the population end up unemployed and homeless when their jobs were "taken over" by computers?


Yes.. AI will have an impact, but we'll adapt like we always do.

Or if you take OP's premise that companies will become super-efficient and lay off most of their workforce, then who is going to buy that company's products? A bunch of newly-unemployed folks certainly won't!

[Anonymous]

I don’t even know what AI is lol

[Anonymous]

We have taught our kids that salaries are not a path to wealth. Creating a successful business and/or investing wisely IS. We have done the latter, and we are teaching them how to do the same.

Humans are extremely bad at predicting the future, OP, and there is no knowing how AI will shape our children's careers, beyond automating certain tasks. The most important skill they need is adaptability. Tell them the ground is going to shift under their feet: they have to seize opportunities when they come and never expect any situation to stabilize for long.