When Johannes Gutenberg introduced the printing press in the 15th century, people were panicked.
Scribes, whose job it was to painstakingly copy texts by hand, feared they’d be rendered obsolete. Scholars worried that information would be corrupted. Politicians and clergy warned that this disruptive new technology could spread dangerous ideas.
Sound familiar?
Today, Artificial Intelligence has become the new printing press.
And once again, fear is the knee-jerk reaction.
Just seven years ago I sat in a room of entrepreneurs speculating on what could happen with AI. People were scared. We’re hearing the same refrains: “It’s going to take our jobs,” “It’s too risky,” “It’s going to destroy society.”
Here’s the thing—the printing press didn’t destroy knowledge. It democratized it. It ushered in a new era of enlightenment, education, and opportunity. It gave birth to revolutions, art, science, and philosophy.
It wasn’t the end of jobs; it was the beginning of new industries and a catalyst for human progress.
And that’s where we are today.
We’re living at the precipice of a monumental shift—one that eclipses the impact of the discovery of fire, the wheel, the internet, and yes, the printing press. We are the generation alive at the moment when the future is being redefined.
But here’s the catch: The most dangerous thing isn’t change. It’s clinging to the past.
Those who fixate on nostalgia, who romanticize the “good old days,” who resist learning and growing, lose. Those who choose to hold onto relics of the past instead of creating more value moving forward will pay a steep price. They will suffer. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. There may be pain learning about the tools, taking time to increase your knowledge of how to use AI.
Those who embrace creative disruption, who ride the waves of innovation, who build and create the future, win.
Bitcoin is a gift. The internet is a gift. And AI is a gift too. Even if all these gifts have pros and cons.
Of course, there are legitimate concerns with AI:
- Bias in algorithms
- Data privacy risks
- Potential job displacement
- Ethical dilemmas in decision-making
- Dependency on technology
- Misinformation and deepfakes
But focusing only on these issues is like seeing the printing press and worrying only about bad pamphlets.
Many of those afraid of AI view the world through a lens of scarcity. They see value creation as a finite pie, believing there’s only so much to go around. They focus on what AI will take away—jobs made obsolete—instead of seeing what can be created. They miss that we now have the opportunity to choose more leisure and less grind.
In Killing Sacred Cows, I challenged the scarcity mindset head-on. Scarcity thinking leads to fear, pride, jealousy, and a zero-sum mentality. It suggests there is a limit to wealth, happiness, or success.
But the truth is, value is expansive, not finite. Velocity is the key. I wrote about how money follows value, not scarcity. And velocity—the speed at which money moves through value creation and exchange—is what builds real wealth.
Exchange creates wealth, and with AI, we can exchange ideas, services, and solutions more quickly and effectively than ever before. Some jobs will indeed become obsolete—but new ones, better ones, will be created.
The wheel didn’t eliminate transportation; it expanded it. Fire didn’t ruin food; it transformed how we live. The internet didn’t remove information; it unlocked it. AI will do the same.
AI will enable people in the Producer Paradigm to add more value. And Producers understand that creating more value than they consume is the real game.
AI accelerates that ability. It allows us to eliminate the busyness that keeps us stuck, amplifies our creativity, and expands our reach.
Those who adopt AI will add more value, impact more people, and serve others more deeply. They will be the new Producers. They will be the ones who win.
Because here’s what AI will allow us to do:
- Remove busyness: Automate the menial, the repetitive, the soul-sucking tasks that drain our energy.
- Increase productivity: Do in minutes what used to take hours.
- Expand creativity: Collaborate with AI to spark ideas, craft solutions, and create art in ways never before possible.
- Enhance connection: Free up time to build real communities, deepen human relationships, and foster collaboration.
- Unlock value: Focus on high-leverage, meaningful work that aligns with our purpose and potential.
- Design our lives: Build businesses, relationships, and lifestyles that are rich, fulfilling, and uniquely our own.
Creative disruption isn’t comfortable. But comfort isn’t the goal.
Progress is.
We’re not here to be scribes in a world that demands innovation. We’re here to be creators. Builders. Producers.
And in this era, the future doesn’t belong to those who cling to the past.
It belongs to those who create it. Those who write their own script (leveraging AI for efficient editing, of course).
