Scrolling on Twitter - I sometimes think the only thing AI is advancing is the circle jerk of getting likes and retweets. But I stumbled across an article on Vice this week on how people are using ChatGPT to actually work multiple jobs.
Throughout the overemployed community, there is a quiet arms race to figure out just how much of the corporate workday can be automated away using an assortment of AI tools, some of which predate ChatGPT. The possibility of increasing their income, or at least easing the burden of holding down multiple jobs, has led to an explosion of experimentation.
……Charles, who has worked as a software engineer and product manager and solutions architect, including at a FAANG company, had been all-in on overemployment since 2020—while he currently works two jobs, he worked four at the height of the pandemic—but said that AI tools have made juggling the positions much easier.
It’s kind of a hilarious situation because we know that AI makes workers more efficient. But efficiency is one of those things that’s somewhat hard to prove.
The remote overemployed community is effectively exploiting this lack of understanding of efficiency. Middle managers and executives already deal with operational challenges when employees are quiet quitting. If AI can help you look as competent as your average co-worker, then if you’re really motivated, you can stretch the limits of your own total compensation.
Which really seems to motivate a certain group of people:
More than a member of the overemployed community, Charles, the FAANG alumni, considers himself part of the FIRE movement—short for “Financial Independence, Retire Early” Not yet 30, he is already making $500,000 working two jobs and worth around $3 million, claims he backed up to Motherboard with documentation. But he hopes to increase his compensation to $800,000 by tacking on a third position, and reach a net worth of $10 million by 35.
But it all feels in a sense a bit “backwards” right?
Clearly Charles is smart and motivated to increase his wealth. But he does it by exploiting a benefit where he doesn’t have to be in physical proximity to any of his bosses. In some cases - it makes sense just to find ways to increase his leverage build a real business with this new AI alpha.
Why Not Start an Agency?
The first order of any AI advancement probably starts from the consulting industry. Indeed if companies like EY or Accenture, who make billions in margins in their consulting business, are integrating AI into all of their services, then it’s clear statement that this advantage does have some marginal benefit on the bottom line.
The common theme is then how to actually find these advantages before everyone else does. For example it’s clear that coding and copywriting can be now done much faster with AI. A freelance writer from the Vice article cited that an article that used to take him 3 hours to write now takes 45 minutes. So ChatGPT + copywriting is in a sense an alpha, a way to be more efficient and hold an advantage.
But this only works as long as everyone else isn’t also using ChatGPT for copywriting. If everyone used ChatGPT for SEO posts, then the advantage then accrues back to agencies that are better managed and have better overall writers.
So finding an advantage could be just understanding the market saturation for AI tools in a specific industry. Ideally ones that are at late adopters to new technologies but still benefit from AI usage. Furthermore, there’s a competitive advantage in adopting the latest AI models that outperform their predecessors in specific sectors.
For example if you discover that GPT-4 is suddenly way better at filling out immigration law forms than GPT-3.5 was - then you’re effectively in a discovery mode arbitrage on AI models within different niches. And in fact it seems like GPT-4 was better than ChatGPT in certain areas like the bar exam, but substandard or barely improved in others.
One thing to consider is if AI development companies like OpenAI could exploit these advantages to improve their own products. Techcrunch revealed OpenAI had been using GPT-4 for six months prior to public launch. And this advantage in beta development could be used for building businesses with huge gains. Imagine what would happen if GPT-5 was completely AGI within software development and held back for a year before public launch.*
But all of these advancements have one thing in common - they do feel short term. Most alpha technically is - but on a long enough horizon, no advantage will really last without building some sort of brand or history of competence.
That was at least what worked in all of human capitalism in the past. Going forward with AI, it’s all pretty much completely unknown. And in this unknown future, most people will be hoping to at least have one job to be done.
*Though it's worth noting that most businesses don't always utilize their own data to create consumer products or goods, as this might not be applicable to their core business. For example, while Google may not use search data to build trending consumer products, Amazon likely does.