By Haddon Libby
Last week Forbes Magazine released its second annual list of The Future of Work 50. These are leaders, companies, thinkers, and teams who are helping to shape the future of work.
The most obvious change in how we will work in the future is Generative AI. This advance will help eliminate many of the tedious tasks of many jobs. Some jobs may go away although it is expected to create higher paying jobs that are more interesting to the worker. It also could wreak havoc. As one example, deep fakes with video, pictures or audio will be difficult to distinguish from reality.
Sam Altman and Mira Murati are the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for OpenAI. This company launched ChatGPT one year ago and almost immediately received a $10 billion investment from Microsoft. With this capital infusion, Microsoft brought generative A.I. to the company.
Dario and Daniela Amodei are siblings and the cofounders of Anthropic. Two years ago, these siblings left the team of researchers working on OpenAI, another generative AI effort. Amazon has invested $4 billion and Google $2 billion. The difference between Anthropic’s offering and some others is that they attempt to mitigate the harm that A.I. could do to humanity.
Joe Atkinson, Mohamed Kande, and Yolanda Coffield of PwC U.S. This group is working with Microsoft and OpenAI on a version of generative AI that will be used in a secure workplace environment.
Jensen Huang, Cofounder of NVIDIA. NVIDIA released a high-powered gaming chip last year called the H100. There was a problem in that the chip cost $40,000 and buyers seemed less than interested in spending so much to have a faster running game. Huang realized that this chip could be used to create the power needed by those building generative AI programs like ChatGPT and demand now outstrips supply.
Lisa Su, CEO of AMD. With a new MI300 chip for AI and high-performance computing, Su is looking to gain some of NVIDIAs dominant market share. Su has a Ph.D from MIT and is one of the richest self-made women in the United States with a passion for helping women enter the male-dominated computer engineering field.
Rooz Ghaffari, Cofounder of Epicore Biosystems develops wearable technology and clothing. His efforts are meant to help workers who are exposed to extreme heat conditions. His clothing is lined with sweat-sensing patches that help protect workers. By monitoring fluids lost through sweat along with electrolytes, dehydration and the worker’s condition can be monitored. Ghaffari has received $10 million in seed capital from some big potential users like Chevron and the US Army.
Raj Choudhury, Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School was studying the idea of ‘work from anywhere’ prior to COVID. Choudhury’s research shows that worker productivity increases when allowed to work from their location of choice so long as workers gather occasionally. His current research is looking at alternatives to large offices in metropolitan centers.
Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania. One of Shapiro’s pledges when running for governor was to eliminate the college degree requirement from 65,000 or 92% of state jobs preferring to focus on the ability to do a job.
Steven Paynter, Principal at Gensler created an algorithm that quickly determines whether an office building can be converted to housing. Because of his work, a process that would take four to six months is reduced to hours. Paynter once said at a White House roundtable that his job is to “identify the losers and figure out what to do with them?” If he could only do this with the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.
For the complete list, visit www.forbes.com.
Haddon Libby is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Winslow Drake Investment Management, a locally based RIA firm. For more information on our services, please visit www.WinslowDrake.com.
