Billionaire investor Ray Dalio is sure that artificial intelligence will soon be a “great disruptor” in all of our lives — for both better and worse.

AI will help people make strides in productivity, education, healthcare and even usher in a three-day workweek, Dalio said on Tuesday at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival 2023. On the other hand, it’ll likely “disrupt jobs” and be a cause of “argument” for employees and legislators who support halting or slowing down AI’s evolution, he said.

“All these changes are going to happen in the next five years,” Dalio, the founder of hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates, added. “And when I say [that], I don’t mean five years from now. I mean that you’re going to see [changes] next year ... the next year, [even bigger] changes. It’s all going to change very fast.”

Some developments are already in motion. ChatGPT has swiftly exceeded most people’s expectations, passing Wharton MBA exams and allegedly helping someone win the lottery less than a year after its November 2022 launch.

Job disruptions may also be underway: As more than 100,000 actors strike for better wages, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is lobbying to replace some of them with artificial intelligence.

The trend could expand to other industries soon. Forty-nine percent of U.S. CEOs and C-suite executives say their current workforce’s skills won’t be relevant by 2025, according to a survey from online education platform edX published on Tuesday.

In the same survey, executives said they’re already trying to hire AI-savvy employees, with 87% citing that effort as a struggle. That could open up a lane of opportunity for workers, who can learn and use AI skills to make some extra cash.

“There are many online learning opportunities to understand how AI works, which then could help [someone] possibly become an AI tutor, or to do some AI training to pass it on to the next generation,” Susan Gonzales, CEO and founder of nonprofit AIandYou, told CNBC Make It in July. 

Just about everyone, from entrepreneurs and freelancers to full-time office workers, could stand to benefit from learning more about AI, Gonzales said.

Whether you’re excited, curious or flat-out scared, “now would be the time to increase your knowledge,” she added.

CNBC