Onward, a Fundrise Production 52: How will AI impact the economy?
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Jan 2, 2026 The discussion navigates the economic implications of AI, framing it as a new industrial revolution. With AI handling customer support and cybersecurity, business efficiency is set to skyrocket. The hosts explore how many routine tasks will be automated, shifting the focus to more complex cognitive work. They also address the potential for disinflation and the impact on labor and capital dynamics. Political responses and the possibility of unequal AI benefits add complexity to the landscape, raising questions about future workplace adaptation.
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Tokens Per Person Make AI Tangible
- A 50 GW AI buildout could produce ~1,000 trillion tokens per day, roughly 4–5 million tokens per adult per day.
- Ben uses this to quantify how abundant AI cognitive capacity could become and why it's economically meaningful.
AI Replaced Six Customer-Service Roles
- Fundrise routes roughly half of its ~6,000 monthly customer service tickets to AI and pays about $51,000 a year for the AI agent.
- That AI replaced six human roles and consumes ~2 million tokens per day.
AI Shifts Work Toward Harder Cognitive Tasks
- AI removes repetitive tasks, leaving humans with harder cognitive work and changing how people must schedule deep thinking.
- Ben warns that taking away easy tasks shifts the mix of daily work toward sustained high-intensity cognitive effort.