Only civil society can preempt AGI dislocation

Learning from Ki Tisa: Since government is too slow, civil society should start planning now for AGI’s impact

“The end of my career as I know it,” was the message I got from my childhood friend, a still-life photographer for e-commerce platforms, along with a link to a new AI tool called Presti. “Do you really think so?” I asked. He confirmed the AI wasn’t perfect, but it could replace a good portion of what he does for a living. “It’s good enough,” he wrote, and that’s good enough for management.

I’ve had the same conversation almost daily with friends from fields as far flung as marketing, social work, government, legal, and investing. Perhaps you have too. Initially, the consensus was that AI was a powerboost, enabling people to do in minutes what used to take days. Next, people realized they could do more because they could cut out the middle person – often junior people within their organizations they would rely on for aspects of the work. Now, little over two years since the public launch of ChatGPT – and an estimated two to three years until the introduction of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or a substantial equivalent – people are questioning their jobs are secure.

To be fair, my friends are primarily from the knowledge worker class: people who do most of their work through digital tools and rely on those tools to explore, express, and coordinate their work. These people are used to being their family’s providers, serving as the Haves in society and when possible using their surplus earnings to help the Have Nots. They are more likely to volunteer for and donate to civil society organizations than ask for help.

Which is why it will be doubly difficult for many of the organizations they support to come to their aid if and when AGI obviates their job.

Unlike the risk to national security that government must prioritize to weather the AGI introduction storm, the impact of AGI on civil society will be evolutionary and escalating: it will take a while to gain momentum as organizations integrate tools and reallocate work from people to digital agents.

Once one organization makes the shift, the rest will follow due to the pressures of unit economics. It will begin as a trickle and continue as a flood. For example, Salesforce announced it will hire no new software engineers in 2025, at the same time as OpenAI’s Sam Altman predicts AI will function as the world’s best programmer by the end of 2025. Lawyers and bankers are saying the same thing: at first hiring will freeze, then jobs will be cut, and finally organizations will be rebuilt to reflect this new reality.

Even if estimates of AI’s impact are overstated, a 30% drop in employment in professions that can be digitally intermediated over the next 5 years seems likely. This will reduce income, harm tax revenues, decrease charitable giving, and send millions of successful professionals into job searches requiring retraining. Civil society will quickly feel the pain.

This should particularly concern civil society in Israel and other advanced nations, which, like the State, is disproportionately supported by knowledge workers and their economic surplus. The grand majority of Israel’s tax and charity base relies on knowledge workers: lawyers, accountants, bankers. A decade ago the State couldn’t persist without their contributions. Since, Israel’s reliance on tax and charitable income from knowledge workers has grown, enabling subsidies to non-working populations. That arrangement is likely to come crashing down.

Given the current state of the government – the dysfunction, the corruption – we cannot rely on the State to prepare for this great dislocation. Civil society needs to take responsibility, and here are three ways to do so:

1. Establish a baseline: civil society organizations need first and foremost to assess their exposure and the exposure of their stakeholders, to employment disruption by AGI. This means surveying their contributors, volunteers, and beneficiaries to know how many work in digitally intermediated jobs.
2. Open a conversation: organizations should acknowledge impending change and ensure no one feels at fault for losing their job. After 2008, many lost their homes, and millions of knowledge workers became unemployed. Those in their 50s and 60s struggled to find new jobs, and the shame made it worse. It took years for those fired to realize they are not their jobs. Organizations can prepare stakeholders for the change by starting a conversation aimed at empowerment: we know what’s coming, what are we going to do about it together?
3. Collaborate across boundaries: such a monumental change cannot be addressed by any one organization alone. Expect a fall in public and charitable giving. As our society shifts and previous Haves find themselves with naught, organizations will have to work together to create a new social safety net, helping find previously successful professionals new purpose while enriching society and strengthening human connections. The antidote to AGI dislocation is more humanity, deeper solidarity, and robust caring communities. Civil society must start weaving this network now to catch the first waves of layoffs coming.

In his explanation of the Torah portion Ki Tisa, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reminds us that the point of life is not to work, but to cease from working. The ideal society is not one where programmers, lawyers, bankers, and branding professionals work long hours, but one where human beings care for themselves and their world.

While it seems hard to imagine such a future, Rabbi Sacks reminds us that many already experience this existence on their weekend. “The Sabbath is a full dress rehearsal for an ideal society that has not yet come to pass, but will do, because we know what we are aiming for.” Perhaps AGI will not result in an ideal society, and perhaps it will cause more trouble than it’s worth. The job of civil society, however, should be to ensure we remember, together, that we are more than our work – and to help us care for each other as we strive to build a more perfect world.