Vinod Khosla has no doubts that humanity's future with AI is bright.

The co-founder of Sun Microsystems turned prominent investor predicts that "the need to work will go away" almost entirely thanks to AI.

"Almost all expertise-it doesn't matter whether you are talking about primary care physicians, mental health therapists, oncologists, structural engineers or accountants-all of it can be near-free," he said Monday during a conversation with TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 conference.

When asked why he's so optimistic about an AI-infused future, Khosla said the world where most human labor is free will have "great abundance," adding that GDP growth will increase from "2% to well over 5%."
Because many people are concerned that AI could be detrimental to society, Khosla recently penned an essay titled: AI: Dystopia or Utopia?

Onstage today, he summarized some of the points from the 13,150-word essay.

Even though he is optimistic, Khosla said there are risks to AI.

"We could have sentient AI try and kill humanity," he said, adding that AI safety has to be addressed, even though he vehemently disagreed with the now vetoed California AI bill, SB 1047.

But the biggest concern for Khosla is the use of AI by U.S. rivals.

By and large, the biggest risk we face is strong AI in the hands of our adversaries," he said. "I'm mostly thinking of President Xi, and I'm thinking of Putin."

For months, Khosla has been warning about open source AI, arguing the threat of its potential abuse by China.

In addition to the fear that AI will be weaponized in the hands of adversaries, Khosla said this technology may lead to increased income inequality.

"Capitalism tends to concentrate wealth, so we have to have policy to equalize it so everybody has a stake," the venture capitalist and proponent of universal basic income and income redistribution added.

Khosla has been long bullish on AI. Even though what OpenAI was building was a bit of an ambiguous goal, says Khosla, his investment in the firm in 2018 was an easy decision to make.

Khoshla Ventures is one of the earliest institutional investors of OpenAI. The firm's initial check of $50 million has thus bought it a 5% stake in the company which is now valued at $157 billion.