I’ll be offline this Monday and Tuesday for religious reasons, but before I step away, I wanted to share something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Given where we are in the Jewish calendar—commemorating the giving of the Ten Commandments 3,500 years ago—I think the timing is fitting.

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I have been working with machine learning, i.e., neural networks and other models, for 20 years. Seven years ago I was a co-founder of an AI university in Ukraine that guaranteed graduates a full-time job at Udata Tech, our AI-focused consulting business.

Only top applicants with academic awards and undergraduate degrees in math, physics, or computer science were accepted—after passing a challenging entrance exam. The AI that we were doing at the time was building smaller versions of the current plethora of today’s LLMs, driving industry and society forward at a rate of knots we have rarely seen before.

The business failed as a victim of its own success. We grew too quickly and didn’t have the right people in place to win new consulting jobs for our growing salaried consultants. While I don’t consider myself an AI expert in the technical aspects of the science, I do have a deep understanding of the industry and its trajectory.

We are on the brink of an economic transformation unlike any seen before. With the convergence of generative AI, robotics, and—soon—quantum computing, the next 10 to 20 years are likely to deliver staggering productivity gains. This won't just reshape industries—it will redefine the structure of work, wealth, and society.

The immediate effect will be displacement. Millions of jobs, even skilled ones, will be rendered obsolete as machines surpass human capability in task after task. The companies building these intelligence engines—those controlling the models, chips, and infrastructure—will become the economic titans of the era, accruing outsized profits with fewer and fewer people in their ranks.

But there's another side to this. Tools that once required vast teams and capital will be at the fingertips of individuals. A solo entrepreneur or a small team may soon have the effective output of what once took 100 or 200 people. This democratisation of scale could empower a wave of lean, creative upstarts to challenge legacy players in unexpected ways.

Still, for the average person, the picture may darken. As the marginal value of human labour declines, so too may wages—especially for tasks that are easily replicated by machines. Wealth will concentrate even further, and the gap between those who own the engines and those who do not will widen. Even if food, energy, and shelter become cheaper and more accessible, inequality could become more visible—and less tolerable.

This disparity could lead to profound societal unrest, as large segments of the population find themselves economically irrelevant. The political consequences could be severe—ranging from uprisings to authoritarian crackdowns, even wars, with AI-powered weaponry in the hands of rogue states and actors causing destruction that becomes a constant anxiety hanging in the air.

And yet, within this disruption lies a kernel of utopian possibility.

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote that “for the first time since his creation, man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure… to live wisely and agreeably and well.” He predicted a 15-hour work week. That future, long delayed, may now be technologically feasible. The deeper question is whether we are psychologically or socially ready for it.

This is what has been occupying my current thinking. Some 3,500 years ago, the Jewish people wandered in the desert for 40 years, with their physical needs miraculously met. This created a rare historical window in which the burden of survival was lifted, allowing space for spiritual pursuit and national transformation.

Keynes envisioned a world where human beings, freed from the demands of subsistence through productivity gains, would be faced with a similar opportunity: to pursue meaning, wisdom, and higher purpose. In his words, to “live wisely, agreeably, and well.”

The Jewish experience in the desert, then, can be seen as a prototype or allegory for what a post-scarcity society might look like—not in technological terms, but in existential terms. It poses the same question we now face: when we are no longer struggling for financial survival, what will we do with our time, our minds, and our souls?

If machines can meet our material needs with minimal human labour, then survival need not be the organising principle of life. But what takes its place? Can we build a culture where time freed from work is used in the pursuit of meaning, creativity, and connection rather than despair or distraction?

There's also the macroeconomic question: if fewer people work and wages fall, who will buy what the productive economy can produce? Growth depends on consumption. If population growth stalls and demand stagnates, even our productivity engines may become unnecessary. Investment in infrastructure may no longer mean jobs or widespread benefit but simply more efficient systems serving fewer people.

So the paradox is this: productivity may soar, but unless society rethinks purpose, meaning, and distribution, we risk a future where abundance breeds alienation and wealth breeds fragility. The ideal end of all this technology is not just survival, but the possibility of becoming more fully human. Whether we take that opportunity or squander it will be the defining story of the coming decades.

In conclusion, I am seeing the incredible progress in technology as a truly double-edged sword. We are likely to be presented with a utopian type of existence. My sober conclusion is that, as a society, we may not be ready to embrace this opportunity—and instead may drift into something more dystopian. But for those willing to shift towards a life of greater meaning, the tools for a richer, more fulfilling existence will be more accessible than ever before. That, in itself, is a blessing. True happiness—rooted in purpose—may be within reach for many if we’re willing to recognise it. The choice, ultimately, is ours.

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