- Jason Warner, CEO of poolside, believes AGI will act as a supportive tool for new workers particularly in the software industry, offering them an always-available, highly knowledgeable assistant akin to a senior colleague. He argues that this approach could empower early-career professionals and drive workforce growth, even as broader concerns about AI-driven job displacement persist.
Starting a new job—especially your first job—can feel like being thrown in at the deep end. But with AGI, new entrants to the workforce will have an always-available, infinitely patient senior leader at their fingertips.
That’s according to Jason Warner, the co-founder and CEO of poolside. San Francisco and Paris-based poolside builds AI models for software engineers, helping businesses develop their own codes and applications.
Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm AI conference in London on Wednesday, Warner highlighted that AGI—artificial general intelligence—changes its definition depending on who you ask.
Generally, AGI refers to an artificial intelligence which can undertake the tasks humans can.
“My definition and how we at poolside think about [AGI] is when an AI can basically do the equivalent information work for a person,” Warner said. “It doesn’t mean replace, it doesn’t mean any of those sorts of things.
“This is broadly speaking, the systems—the LLM itself plus some systems—do those tasks.”
Augment or replace
In Warner’s opinion, companies have a choice between magnifying their workforce courtesy of AGI, or delivering efficiencies by cutting their human ranks. Warner’s opinion is that the first choice is preferable, as it has the potential to open up greater growth.
Fears about roles being replaced by AI are rife. A Pew Research study published in February found more than half of the American workforce (52%) are worried about the impact of AI on the workforce.
Lower and middle-income workers are more likely to feel their opportunities will be significantly diminished by the technology, Pew added.
While Warner’s take is more optimistic on that front, he also shared an optimistic outlook for how AGI—which he believes could be achieved by his definition in the next three years—could aid new staffers joining the workforce.
Young people—aged 18 to 24 specifically—are particularly concerned about how AI may impact their future employment prospects, according to a study published by BMG Research.
But Warner argues AI will be used as a tool to sit alongside new hires, as opposed to taking their roles.
“So [a] brand new person coming into the business—maybe just as a non-programmer trying to become a programmer … each person can use the same system in a very different way, and interestingly I think that these systems are the perfect learning environment for folks early in their career because effectively you have an infinitely patient senior person for them, next to them,” Warner said.
He added: “You [could] point out a code base [and say] ‘What is this thing even all about?’ ‘Where should I start looking for the interesting bits and bobs?’ ‘Explain this to me.’
“I love the one where … you can ask it ‘Why would they have done it this way, and what tradeoffs might they have made doing this?’ So you think about treating [it] again like a senior person sitting next to you.”
Warner added that the depth of knowledge a system may have could span back decades, meaning a wealth of experience is readily available to new hires instantly.
“The safety net that these systems are going to provide for these folks is gonna be unlike other domains, where you have none of that discrete discernible feedback from the safety net,” he added.
