The Next Big Pandemic
"If that's the future that you see, why would you ever want to live there?"
That's Peter Diamandis. On my show. This week.
Peter founded the XPRIZE. Co-founded Singularity University with Ray Kurzweil. Wrote Abundance. His new book—We Are As Gods—dropped this week.
I've had him on the show 10 times.
This one might be my favorite.
Not because I agree with everything he says, but because his vision of the future is so huge and bold.
The Next Big Pandemic
Peter thinks the next pandemic is coming.
But it’s not viral. It’s emotional.
A pandemic of fear. Fear about jobs. Fear about AI. Fear shaped by a decade of Hollywood dystopia.
Terminator. Black Mirror. Ex Machina.
“If that's the only future you can picture, why would you want to live there?”
So Peter's doing something about it. He launched the Future Vision XPRIZE with Rod Roddenberry, son of Gene Roddenbery—the guy who created Star Trek. $15 million to fund a hopeful, Star Trek-style film. Give people a more optimistic target to aim at.
I pushed Peter on the fear thing.
I don't think the job fears are ridiculous.
The nature of work is changing fast, and telling people "just partner with AI" is easy advice when you already know how. A guy doing labor in Ohio isn't going to wake up tomorrow and spin up Claude Code.
That's a real gap.
His response was three things.
Three Ways to Think About It
One: this is the Industrial Revolution all over again. People panicked that the machines would eat their jobs. Then they learned to run the machines. Same thing here—except you're going to manage AI instead of a loom.
Two: most people on Earth don't love their jobs. They work because they need insurance and groceries. AI is the thing that finally lets them do what they actually want to do.
Three: every human on the planet now has the tools to impact a billion lives. We're self-limiting. Those tools will get easier to use for everyone, conforming to the individual rather than the other way around.
I'm still wrestling with it.
I think the end-state is right. But the transition is where the pain lives. That’s what I’m worried about.
Then we talked about economics.
Extreme Abundance
Peter told me he talked to Elon on stage at his Abundance summit earlier this year. Elon thinks we're headed into triple-digit GDP growth. Not 3%. Not 6%. 100% year over year.
Companies shrink to 20% of their current headcount. Profits go vertical.
At the same time, 4 to 10 times more companies get started. Solopreneurs everywhere. Peter himself says he's starting more companies right now than at any point in his life.
But what happens to the people whose jobs vanish overnight and they don’t start businesses? The government does one thing: It writes checks.
Like COVID, but bigger.
Think $3,000/month. Of course, inflation comes with it. But here's the other side—everything demonetizes.
Transportation. Healthcare. Education. Peter says the poorest person on Earth will soon have a chauffeur. The best doctor on Earth. The best tutor on Earth. All free. All AI.
I had questions here too.
Triple-digit GDP growth plus the government printing $3,000/month checks sounds like a monetary story that's never actually played out cleanly.
Peter's counter is that demonetization is the release valve—costs fall faster than checks get cashed.
Maybe. How smooth the transition will be is still up in the air.
Creators vs. Consumers
Peter splits humanity into five forks in the road for humans.
These are big choices coming to all of us in the next 10-20 years.
Do you double your lifespan, or keep the 79 years nature gave you? Do you go to space, or stay Earth-bound? Do you upload your consciousness into silicon, or stay biological? Do you merge with AI through a brain interface, or keep your skull sealed?
And then the one that makes the most sense to think about right now: creators vs. consumers.
Because every other fork happens on someone else's timeline—when the science arrives, when the rocket works. You're a passenger.
But creators vs. consumers? That one you choose today. With the tools already on your phone.
If you’re reading this, you probably have Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini sitting right there. The split right now has nothing to do with access.
It's about whether you open the thing and build. And which side you land on probably decides which side of the other forks you get to choose.
Creators will have the capital and the agency to opt into the rest. Consumers get whatever trickles down.
Everyone reading this still has a choice about which side they end up on.
For now.
We talked for an hour. I barely scratched the surface in this article.
