Mark My Words: One Day We'll Wake Up and Everything Will Be Different (Here's Why AGI Is Closer Than You Think)
TL;DR: Artificial general intelligence isn't 20 years away—we're watching it happen in real-time. The difference between AGI and past technological revolutions is infrastructure. Previous revolutions (agricultural, industrial) took decades to deploy because the infrastructure didn't exist. AI has fiber optics, cloud computing, and the internet already in place globally. That means the speed of deployment is exponential, not linear. Job displacement is real and accelerating. The companies racing toward AGI (OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic) understand that whoever achieves it first controls everything. The ethical question isn't whether AI can solve problems—it's whether we'll let it, and who benefits.
One Day We're Going to Wake Up and Everything Will Be Different
Mark my words: one day very soon, probably sooner than you expect, we're going to wake up and the entire world is going to be different.
Not just the job market. Not just technology. Everything.
And the reason everything's going to change this fast is because of something that didn't exist during previous technological revolutions: infrastructure.
Why This Revolution Is Different From Every Other One
People keep saying, "Well, AI is just like the agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution. Those didn't destroy society. They just created new jobs."
That's technically true. But there's a massive difference in how fast those revolutions rolled out.
The Agricultural Revolution:
Imagine you're in Pennsylvania in the 1600s and you discover a revolutionary way to grow food that produces 10x more yield per acre. That's incredible. But here's the problem: there are no roads to the West Coast. There's no communication system to tell people about your discovery. There are no established trade routes. There are no schools teaching these new methods.
So that revolutionary discovery stays local for decades. Maybe a century passes before it reaches California.
The infrastructure had to be built first. Then the innovation could spread.
The Industrial Revolution:
Same story. Factories had to be constructed. Transportation networks had to be created. Schools had to shift curriculum. Legal systems had to adapt. Labor markets had to be established.
All of that took 30-50 years.
Artificial General Intelligence:
But AGI has a completely different situation. The infrastructure it needs to spread globally is already here.
Fiber optic cables laid during the dot-com boom. 5G networks everywhere. Data centers on every continent. Cloud computing accessible from anywhere. Billions of mobile devices. Global internet connectivity.
This means AGI doesn't have to wait for infrastructure. It deploys now. Everywhere. Simultaneously.
That's why the speed is different. What took 20-30 years in previous revolutions might take 2-3 years with AGI.
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The Race to AGI: OpenAI vs. Google vs. Everyone Else
Right now, we're watching a race that will determine who controls the most powerful technology ever created.
OpenAI just dropped O5.2. Before that, Google dropped Gemini 3 and everyone said, "Google's back. This is it. Google's going to win."
The benchmarks were impressive. The system architecture was fantastic. People were genuinely excited.
Then OpenAI responded with O5.2 and the message was clear: we have something better. Not because we're saying so. Because our internal testing shows it.
Here's what's not being said out loud: both companies are closer to AGI than the public realizes. And they're racing because they understand that whoever achieves AGI first has something worth more than anything else in the world.
That's not hyperbole. That's the actual stakes.
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Specialist AI vs. General AI: Two Paths Forward
There are two fundamentally different types of AI being developed right now.
Specialist AI (Narrow Focus):
These are large language models trained on a single, specific domain. Build one for cancer research. Its entire purpose is to solve cancer. Build one for physics. One for mathematics. One for climate science.
Here's what makes specialist AI powerful: it has access to everything humanity has ever discovered in its domain. It works 24/7 with zero fatigue. It makes connections across datasets that would take a human researcher a lifetime to process.
If you let a specialist cancer AI loose on the cancer problem, how long would it take to find a cure? Months? A year? We don't know. But the answer is probably measured in months, not decades.
General AI (Artificial General Intelligence):
This is what OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, and others are racing toward. A system trained on everything. Not specialized. Not focused. General. Capable of solving problems across any domain at a level that meets or exceeds human capability.
This is the one that actually changes the game.
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The Cure for Cancer Might Already Exist (And That's Terrifying)
Here's something that keeps me up at night: a specialist cancer AI could solve cancer tomorrow. Literally. Not metaphorically. Tomorrow.
And if it does, what happens?
Do the pharmaceutical companies that have spent trillions of dollars on cancer research and treatment release the cure immediately? Or do they hold it back while they negotiate with governments, recoup their losses, figure out patent law?
Do they release it to wealthy countries first? To poor countries? Do they charge for it? If they do, millions die waiting for access.
This isn't cynical speculation. This is how systems work. There's massive money in treating cancer. A cure destroys that business model. The incentives aren't aligned with immediate global deployment.
And this is true for every major problem AI could solve: longevity treatments, energy solutions, agricultural breakthroughs, disease elimination.
The technology might exist to solve world hunger. But the incentives for releasing that technology globally? Those aren't aligned. Someone has to make money. Someone has to benefit. Someone else has to lose.
The Real Question: When advanced AI solves these problems, who gets access? And who doesn't?
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Job Displacement Is Real (And It's Happening Now)
Let me be direct: AI is going to displace jobs. A lot of them. Faster than we expect.
Real estate agents? If an AI system can manage listings, respond to inquiries, schedule showings, and negotiate offers 24/7, why does a business need 50 agents? Maybe they need 5. Maybe they don't.
Customer service? Voice AI is already doing what used to require call centers.
Radiologists? AI reads medical images better than humans in many cases.
Programmers? Code-writing AI is already doing entry-level programming tasks.
This isn't theoretical. This is happening now.
And here's what I want to be clear about: this isn't about individuals being lesser-skilled. It's about economic incentives. If a business can do the same work with 10% of the human workforce by deploying AI, they will. That's not evil. That's just how economics works.
The agent who's displaced isn't lesser-intelligent. They just got disrupted by technology. Like blacksmiths when cars were invented. Like switchboard operators when dial phones came out. Like bank tellers when ATMs were deployed.
But Here's What's Different: Those previous disruptions took 20-30 years to fully play out. AI is doing it in 2-3 years.
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What Santa Clarita Businesses Need to Understand
I work with real estate agents, businesses, and professionals across Santa Clarita Valley. And I see three types of responses to AI:
Type 1: Denial "AI won't affect my business." These people are hoping. They're not preparing.
Type 2: Panic "AI is going to take my job and there's nothing I can do about it." These people are scared. They're not thinking clearly.
Type 3: Integration "AI is a tool. I'm learning how to use it better than my competition. I'm leveraging it to do more work with fewer people and higher margins." These people are surviving. And thriving.
The businesses that will win in the next 2-3 years aren't the ones with the most people. They're the ones with the smartest AI implementation.
A real estate team of 2 people using AI systems effectively might close more deals than a team of 10 doing things manually. A business using AI voice agents might have better customer service and higher margins than competitors with traditional staff.
The businesses that don't figure this out? They'll either adapt or they'll disappear. There's no third option.
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The Ethical Question Nobody Wants to Ask
Here's the conversation nobody wants to have: If AI can solve major problems, but the incentive structure is aligned with profit, not helping people—what happens?
If a specialist AI can cure cancer, but a pharmaceutical company decides to roll it out slowly to protect market share, is that ethical? Probably not. But is it legal? Possibly.
If AI can automate 80% of jobs, but only the businesses and people that own the AI benefit, what happens to everyone else? Do we have a societal collapse? Do we figure out universal basic income? Do we just... accept massive unemployment?
These aren't philosophical questions anymore. They're practical questions that are going to demand answers in the next 3-5 years.
And Santa Clarita, specifically, needs to think about this because we have significant populations of people working in jobs that are getting disrupted right now: real estate, construction, customer service, administrative work.
What's the plan? Is there one?
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The Fork in the Road: AGI for Abundance or AGI for Inequality?
Here's the most important thing I want to communicate: artificial general intelligence doesn't have to lead to mass unemployment and societal collapse.
An AGI system could be used to:
Dramatically increase productivity, so businesses do more with similar staffing levels (not fewer people)
Create entirely new categories of work that don't exist yet
Solve problems like energy, food, medicine—making these resources abundant instead of scarce
Lift people out of poverty globally, not trap them further
That's possible. That's one path.
But it requires intentional choices. Intentional policy. Intentional deployment strategies that prioritize human flourishing over shareholder returns.
The other path—where AGI concentrates wealth and power further, displaces massive portions of the workforce, and creates a two-tiered society of people who own AI and people who compete with AI—that's also possible. And honestly, it's the path we're on if we don't actively choose otherwise.
Santa Clarita businesses and residents need to understand this: You have agency. You can choose to use AI in ways that enhance your people. Or you can use it to replace them. Both are economically viable. Only one is ethically justifiable.
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What You Actually Need to Do Right Now
Stop waiting for AI to feel "safe" or "proven." It's not going to. It's going to keep advancing and you're going to keep feeling uncertain.
Instead:
Learn AI basics. Not coding. Understanding. How does it work? What can it do? What are the limitations? What are the risks?
Experiment with AI in your business. Use ChatGPT. Use Google Gemini. Try voice AI. Automate something small. Learn what's possible.
Think about your business differently. Not "how do I replace people with AI?" But "how do I use AI to make my people more effective?" That's a different question with a different answer.
Prepare your team. If you have employees, help them understand AI isn't the enemy—being left behind is. Upskilling them in AI-native work is better than hoping the problem goes away.
Join the conversation. Santa Clarita Artificial Intelligence offers classes, training, and community. Get involved. Learn from others. Build in public.
The businesses in Santa Clarita that will thrive in the next 2-3 years aren't going to be the ones that did everything perfectly. They're going to be the ones that moved faster than their competition. That experimented. That learned. That adapted.
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Q&A: The Questions Santa Clarita Professionals Are Asking
Q: Isn't AGI still 20 years away? A: No. The companies racing toward it believe it's months to a few years away. The infrastructure is in place. The computational power is increasing exponentially. The benchmarks are advancing faster than expected. "20 years away" was the estimate 5 years ago. Now we're watching it happen.
Q: What if my job gets automated? A: Learn AI. Adapt. Move into roles that require human judgment, emotional intelligence, or complex problem-solving. The jobs that will disappear are those that are purely repetitive or easily automated. The jobs that will thrive are those that work alongside AI, not compete with it.
Q: Is there regulation coming to protect jobs? A: Possibly. California has some proposals in motion. But regulation moves slower than technology. By the time meaningful regulation is in place, the disruption will have already happened. Relying on regulation to protect your job is not a viable strategy.
Q: What skills will be most valuable in the AI era? A: Critical thinking, creativity, complex problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and the ability to learn quickly. Also: understanding how to use AI and integrate it into work. These are the human capabilities that are hardest to automate.
Q: Should I be scared? A: Not scared. Alert. There's a difference. Fear paralyzes. Alertness motivates action. The things you should fear are complacency and denial. The things you should embrace are curiosity and skill-building.
Q: Can I get ahead of this? A: Yes. Start now. Learn AI. Experiment. Adapt your business. Upskill yourself. The competitive advantage will go to people and businesses that move first, not to those that wait for certainty.
Summary
Artificial intelligence isn't coming in 20 years. It's here now, and it's advancing faster than anyone expected because the infrastructure for global deployment already exists. The companies racing toward AGI aren't years away—they're months away. Job displacement is real and accelerating. Santa Clarita businesses and residents face a choice: adapt and thrive, or resist and get left behind. The good news? You have agency in how you respond. The bad news? You have to act now, not later. The future of Santa Clarita depends on businesses, families, and community leaders who understand this transformation and make intentional choices about how to navigate it—choices that prioritize human flourishing alongside technological advancement. The infrastructure is in place. The speed is exponential. The time to decide which path you're on is now.
Related Resources for Santa Clarita Professionals:
When an Expert Says They Don't Use AI, Leave the Meeting—Here's Why That's a Problem
The AI Reckoning: Why Panic Won't Save Us and What Actually Might
Ready to take action? Santa Clarita Artificial Intelligence offers classes, training, and community for businesses, real estate agents, and professionals who want to thrive in the AI era. Join us. Learn with us. Build the future with us.
Because the world is about to change. And you can either lead that change or watch it happen to you.
