Let’s not sugarcoat it: the AI revolution is barreling down the tracks, and most of us still standing on the platform, are clutching old train tickets and hoping the conductor will let us board. But this isn’t the same train we’ve been riding for decades. This one doesn’t stop for anyone who isn’t ready to at least try sprinting.

One AI eats another for breakfast

Let’s clear up a crucial distinction that I see tripping people up everywhere. Right now, we’re living with Generative AI. It writes your emails, spits out code, paints digital portraits, drafts up legal contracts and analyzes MRIs. It’s very clever, but it doesn’t actually “think.” It’s a pattern machine—give it enough data, and it’ll remix it into something that looks new and hopefully correct. Ask it to reason, to plan, to really understand the world? Not a chance.

Then there is the benignly labeled General AI. It’s a whole new species. Imagine an intelligence that doesn’t just parrot back what it’s seen, but can actually learn any task, with no human input, solve brand new problems, and make decisions in situations it’s never encountered before.

Initiative, Autonomy, Proactive Power

But here’s the bit most people miss: General AI won’t just wait around for you to ask it to do something. Today’s Generative AI is like a helpful assistant who sits quietly in the corner until you give it a prompt. General AI? If you feel charitable you might say it’s more like a colleague—if you are realistic, it’s actually your boss—who sees what needs doing and just gets on with it, before you even realize there’s a job to be done. General AI will spot problems, set its own goals, and take action—without waiting for a human to tell it what to do. It’ll make plans, optimize systems, and solve issues on the fly, 24/7, whether or not you’re paying attention. Instead of being “asleep” until prompted, General AI will be constantly active, learning, adapting, and making decisions that reshape entire industries—sometimes before anyone’s even noticed.

This isn’t just a technical upgrade. It’s a fundamental shift in who (or what) is in charge of getting things done.

The timeline just got shorter when this will happen

Here are estimates from some of the people who are building this stuff. Sam Altman at OpenAI is openly saying we could see General AI before 2030, maybe even as soon as 2027. Dario Amodei at Anthropic is on record predicting AGI could outpace humans at almost everything within the next two or three years. Shane Legg, the brains behind AGI at DeepMind, puts the odds at 50/50 that we’ll see it by 2028.

Never mind life in general: what does this mean for work?

The polite fiction that “robots will take our jobs someday” is about to get a lot less polite. Entry-level white-collar roles are vanishing almost overnight. Young people are going to find the door to the workforce isn’t just closed—it’s been replaced by a hologram. For older workers, the “just retrain” chorus rings hollow when the new jobs sound like something out of a sci-fi graphic novel: model shepherds, prompt-pack designers, AI hallucination checkers, AI toolchain experts and more.  These are the gigs on offer now, but let’s be honest: these roles will be eliminated as soon as General AI is in the house because it certainly won’t need squishy human brains to do any of it.

We’re not talking about a gentle handover. We’re talking about one AI generation that will absolutely outclass, outthink, and outmaneuver the last. The gap isn’t just about speed or scale—it’s about who’s calling the shots. When General AI arrives, it won’t just replace jobs; it’ll replace the very idea that humans (or their old-school AIs which are turning 5 years old very soon!) are running the show.

Bottom line

The next AI isn’t coming to play nice with its predecessor. It’s coming to run circles around it—and, by extension, around us too. Get ready for the moment when the new AI doesn’t just join the workforce but takes over the boardroom.

Here’s the part that should make everyone sit up: While governments, organizations, industry groups are busy drafting policy documents and forming committees about how to “regulate” today’s generative AI, the real game-changer is already lining up at the starting blocks. We’re watching precious time slip away as leaders debate the best way to put a seatbelt on a bicycle—when a self-driving rocket is about to launch.

The world’s policymakers are essentially rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, convinced that a few more rules about chatbots and AI assistants will keep the iceberg at bay. The uncomfortable truth? General AI won’t wait for your policy draft to be ratified. By the time the ink is dry on today’s regulations and policies, the next generation of AI will already be writing its own playbook—and it won’t be asking for permission

 

Three Strategies for a Post-Work World

If we want to avoid a future where most people are left behind, we need to do a lot more than write policy memos and offer online courses in prompt engineering. And now. Here are three things we could actually be doing, now:

1. Design Robust Social Safety Nets—Now

• Don’t wait for mass unemployment to hit—start piloting Universal Basic Income and other income guarantees while the economy can still support them. Make these programs flexible, scalable, and ready to expand as more jobs disappear.

2. Reimagine Education for Meaning, Not Just Employment

• Shift away from job training and toward skills that foster critical thinking, creativity, and civic engagement. If work becomes scarce, people will need purpose and community outside of traditional employment.

3. Mandate AI Equity and Ownership

• The profits from AI—especially General AI—should be shared broadly. This could mean public ownership stakes in AI infrastructure, data dividend trusts, or mandatory equity sharing for all citizens. Don’t let a handful of companies capture all the value.

It’s not a great plan to retrain for the current needs of AI jobs if the wave after that will simply wash everything away. The real challenge is to build a society that can thrive even when work, as we know it, is no longer the center of our lives. AI is out of the box and not going back in. The future isn’t waiting.