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Zack Kass has spent 16 years working with AI. He served as OpenAI’s head of go-to-market from 2021 to 2023 and now offers his services as an AI advisor.
“For most of my journey in AI — most of the statistical machine learning, anyway — I could share with you precisely what AI was capable of,” he said at this year’s Customer Contact Week in Las Vegas. It was simple. Is this a good search result or not? Is this a banana? What’s the sentiment of this tweet?
Then, said Kass, the transformer came out, and it told us we were building AI models all wrong. “In that moment, I stopped being able to say exactly what AI can do.”
3 Phases of AI Maturity: 2025-2035 and Beyond
“At some point, a material percentage of the human population will have more interest in a virtual reality than a physical one.”
- Zack Kass
Former Head of Go-to-Market, OpenAI
AI systems are already extraordinarily intelligent — and inexpensive, said Kass. In history, when something like this happens with any commodity, good things happen. But is that the case with AI?
According to Kass, he believes we’ll see the innovation and adoption of AI happen in three phases:
Phase 1 — Embedding AI in Today’s Apps
This is where we take AI and integrate it into existing apps. It’s something we’re already doing. Go to the website for nearly any software company and you'll see it — promises of AI features and capabilities.
Phase 2 — Rise of Autonomous Agents (2027-2035)
This is the stage where autonomous agents will rise up. Or, as Kass described it, a time where we will see “a Siri that works.” This is when we’ll assign tasks and goals to a machine, and it will execute those tasks and goals.
“As a result of agents, we will start to redesign the fundamental internet" — something Kass said is already happening. He calls it the “agentic internet.” This internet won’t be designed for you to browse. Instead, it will be designed for your agent to browse.
Phase 3 — The Passive-Compute Future (2035+)
This is when we’ll see what Kass calls the “natural language operating system” — a design that’s not for human eyes, but for AI agents. A time where it won’t be necessary to browse the web to accomplish things on the web.
He predicts that, during this phase, we’ll stop carrying our devices and start wearing them. Watches, glasses, rings. In fact, OpenAI is currently working on a device that will not have a screen. And we're already seeing some of this tech emerge in the form of Meta's Ray-Ban AI glasses and the Humane AI pin (though this tech arguably still has a long way to go.)
“The future is one where compute happens passively. Most of the computing we do today in an active way (staring at a machine) will become passive, where things happen in the background and we don’t have to learn how to use the machine or know how it works.”
Related Article: AI Agents at Work: Inside Enterprise Deployments
What Happens Next? 8 Bold AI Predictions
We are approaching a world of unmuted intelligence, said Kass. “The amount of GPUs will be so incredible and so inexpensive — you will not be materially at advantage for being smarter than everyone else.”
So, if we have exceptional, inexpensive and fully-integrated machines, what will happen? Kass offered up eight predictions — four bad, four good.
Bad Prediction #1: Idiocracy
The first potential downside Kass pointed to is idiocracy.
“A material percentage of the adult population will realize critical thinking is no longer necessary for survival, and will start to decline cognitively.”
Gen Z appears to be the first generation that’s not smarter than the prior generation, showing alarming rates of illiteracy and poor motor skills, said Kass. It’s also the first generation in many to have a higher occurrence of geniuses.
“If you want to study something exceptionally well, you can, and you no longer need to sit next to a brilliant person.” Information will no longer be gatekept at universities. On the flip side, in a world of abundance and luxury, if you want to do nothing, you can do nothing. And many people choose to do nothing.
Bad Prediction #2: Dehumanization
Another potential downside Kass pointed to is dehumanization. “At some point, a material percentage of the human population will have more interest in a virtual reality than a physical one.”
This is something most of us are already seeing. One study at the beginning of 2024 found that, on average, internet users spent nearly seven hours online each day. That means that, beginning at the age of 18, a person who lives to 80 will spend more than 17 years of their life using the internet.
Beyond leagues of people being stuck perpetually in the virtual world, Kass also pointed to this phenomenon leading to alarming rates of social anxiety, depression and reclusiveness.
Bad Prediction #3: Bad Acting
We already have bad actors and psychopaths in our society. But for most of history, said Kass, this population had to hit us, kick us or use weapons to cause harm. But now, with the internet, a small percentage of bad people can make it an unsafe space.
“AI presents a world where bad actors can now do more bad than ever before.”
To fight this, he said, we have to pass policy to ensure and enforce against bad acting. He pointed to Florida as an example, which passed an extradition law where anyone caught trying to steal from a senior citizen using technology can be extradited to Florida and serve up to 20 years in prison.
“If they don’t do this, show that there’s consequences, it’s going to get really bad,” said Kass, adding that the government has an obligation to stop these people before they start.
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Bad Prediction #4: Job Displacement
Kass’s last "bad" prediction is perhaps one fear on everyone’s minds: job displacement.
Last year, he said, dockworkers (International Longshoremen's Association) held a strike. But they didn’t ask for money or safer worker conditions. Instead, they wanted guarantees from the ports that they would not automate their jobs. Why? Because they wanted to pass those jobs on to their children, the next generation.
Automation can be good, said Kass. If we automate ports, everyone, including dock workers and their kids, would benefit economically. But automation may also cause more harm. We would not just be facing a job displacement crisis, but an identity displacement crisis.
Still, said Kass, “It’s not coming for some. It’s coming for all.”
Now is the time to stop asking kids what they want to do when they’re older, he added. The world should be seen as a place to explore, not a job to be done. “Find identity and purpose outside of work.”
Good Prediction #1: Expansion of Human Potential
Kass’s AI predictions were not all doom and gloom. Though he offered a pragmatic look at the potential (and likely) downsides to AI, he also pointed to certain upsides, the first being the expansion of human potential.
What one person can do today on a GDP basis is much more than a person could do historically, he explained. And our capabilities will only increase as AI becomes more ubiquitous.
Good Prediction #2: Scientific Breakthroughs
“In 10 years, will we feel like we are 1,000 times more productive?” asked Kass. The answer, he said, is maybe.
We’ve discovered our first antibiotic in 60 years because of AI. AI is used to aid medical diagnoses, assist in surgeries and pinpoint patients at risk for certain illnesses. We’re already reducing suffering because of AI.
It’s only natural that, as AI becomes more sophisticated, we’ll use it to make scientific breakthroughs and discoveries we could only imagine before.
Good Prediction #3: Deflation
“We’re building a very inexpensive world with our technology,” said Kass. Our ancestors historically spent more of their wages on food, he explained. Now, our money goes much further.
Where we feel most pain — housing, education, healthcare — it’s because we’ve policied it into oblivion. “We live in a world where we don’t allow technology to do what it can do,” said Kass. “We have to put pressure on the policymakers to allow it to improve our lives.”
Good Prediction #4: Time
And then there’s the argument of time. Kass said that with AI, we get more time — more time back in the day due to living less. Longer lives due to new discoveries and medications.
“But getting more time does not necessarily mean we’re equipped to spend it well,” he added.
Related Article: 5 Predictions for the Artificial Intelligence Roadmap
How to Future-Proof Yourself for AI Phase 3
“Optimism is not naive. It’s one of the critical ingredients of building a better world.”
- Zack Kass
Former Head of Go-to-Market, OpenAI
We can’t say for sure what will happen next. However, Kass offered up two recommendations for how people can prepare now.
The first: embrace adaptability as a strategy.
Things are going to change. That’s inevitable. So do what you can now to stay flexible, able to embrace and accommodate change.
The second recommendation? Design around the things AI cannot do.
“In a world where we are so good at solving computational problems, we need to optimize for humanistic qualities,” said Kass — empathy, curiosity, humor. It will be a world where what you know is so less interesting than how you make people feel.
“Optimism is not naive,” said Kass. “It’s one of the critical ingredients of building a better world.”
