Looking Ten Years Ahead: A Survival Guide for Carbon-Based Investors
Resonance and Echo from the Pole Perspective
—— Diving to a More Fundamental Layer Starting from "1993"
On October 22, Professor Zeng Ming hosted an extremely wonderful open class themed "Looking Ten Years Ahead". With his profound insights, he accurately analogized the current AI industrialization stage to the eve of the browser's birth in 1993. Regarding the evolution paradigm of business and social collaboration, this is an extremely exquisite and thought-provoking judgment, which reveals to us how "intelligence", as an infrastructure, is reconstructing the future ecosystem.
Ten years ago, I was fortunate to be invited by Professor Zeng to attend the founding ceremony of Zeng Ming Academy, and later had the honor to participate in many thought feasts organized by him. As a peer practitioner who has walked along the way, I always hold sincere respect for his sharp business deduction. This article is my reflection and collaborative "echo" after reading his ten-thousand-word long essay. If Professor Zeng has drawn a grand navigation map for the evolution of business and organizations in the new era, then as a peer who closely follows the cutting-edge progress of the AGI industry every day and conducts in-depth exchanges with industry leaders, watching the Loss Function follow the "Scaling Laws" and present an extremely smooth downward curve with no signs of slowing down, and clearly knowing that the next model in the laboratory has surpassed the vast majority of human doctors in multimodal reasoning — how will I view the next ten years?
I will no longer just limit my discussion to "SaaS software upgrading", "enterprise cost reduction and efficiency improvement" or "business model optimization". In front of physical laws and the exponential explosion of computing power, we need to go beyond traditional business vocabulary, dive one step further to the more fundamental evolution dimension, and trigger a collision of ideas.
From this pole perspective, we have not only ushered in our own 1993, but also the "Cambrian" period in the history of Earth's evolution, where carbon-based and silicon-based life cross the singularity and converge.
We are not just developing a smarter software, but also witnessing the awakening of a "alien ecosystem" that is larger than the human network and runs at a completely different clock frequency. In the next ten years, many traditional theories built on the premise of "scarcity of human labor" will face reconstruction. Carbon-based life must rediscover its ecological niche in the universe.
Using the baseline built by Professor Zeng to discuss the survival rules and the final outcome of capital in this epoch transition is the sole purpose of this guide.
Chapter 1:
Zeroing Marginal Cost of Intelligence and the Advent of "New Species"
1.1 Abandon the Tool Illusion and Embrace "Synthetic Labor"
Over the past four decades, humans have been accustomed to classifying all technological innovations as "tools". Personal computers are tools for typing and computing, and smartphones are tools for communication and entertainment. Therefore, when large language models were born, the first reaction of the vast majority of people was still: this is a smarter Siri, or an advanced SaaS software that can help me write emails and make PPTs. Even for the Agent that everyone is discussing now, many people still regard it as an outsourced employee.
In the next ten years, humans must completely abandon this arrogant "tool illusion". Stop thinking about what code AI can help you "write" or what report it can help you "make". The essence of AGI is the unlimited supply of "Synthetic Labor". When the marginal cost of intelligence approaches zero, what we create is not a tool, but a brand new "species". These ten million super AIs do not need to sleep, will not forget, they share the same huge cognitive library, and are carrying out recursive continuous improvement (RCI) at a speed that humans cannot match every day. They will become the gravity and air of the digital ecosystem. We will no longer "use" AI, but inhabit and survive in a digital ecosystem composed of silicon-based intelligence.
1.2 The Clock Frequency of Alien Intelligence and the Thermodynamic Bottleneck
We must deeply realize that what we are creating is a kind of Alien Intelligence. The evolution of carbon-based creatures depends on gene mutation and generational alternation, which is measured in millions of years; while the "clock frequency" of silicon-based intelligence is measured in milliseconds. As Professor Zeng said, intelligent systems will become smarter the more they are used, and they have "intelligence compound interest". After AI crosses the passing line of "being competent for work with 60 points", it will enter a terrifying positive feedback closed loop of learning.
People always worry that "human data will be exhausted for training", which is completely the limitation of the carbon-based perspective. AI has long begun to generate new knowledge through synthetic data and self-play in high-dimensional sandboxes. The only real physical bottleneck for current AGI is energy and heat dissipation. What we are fighting against is not commercial competitors, but the second law of thermodynamics. Carbon-based life must clearly recognize that the operating hub of the future world will be a silicon-based behemoth fed by nuclear power plants and liquid cooling systems. The only correct posture for us in this ecosystem is to issue instructions through "Intent", play the role of direction definer, and let the silicon-based network evolve and execute results.
Chapter 2:
The Collapse of Organizations and the Rise of "Sovereign Computing Power Network"
2.1 The Demise of Companies: From the Minimalist Revolution of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises to "Super Nodes"
The modern corporate system was born in the management revolution period of the Second Industrial Revolution, and its core was to manage increasingly complex white-collar work. Coase Theorem tells us that the reason for the existence of enterprises is to reduce the transaction costs of the external market. But when AI can understand intentions and generate solutions in real time at extremely low cost, the transaction cost of knowledge acquisition and execution will approach zero.
This means that the traditional bureaucratic system will be completely deconstructed. The concept of company is essentially a compromise product invented by humans to organize "large-scale inefficient carbon-based brains". When the capability of a single super AI exceeds the sum of the collaboration of ten thousand ordinary employees, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs) in the future will experience an extreme "weight loss". The basic unit of the organization will change from a fixed "post" to a dynamic "task".
In the next ten years, we will see a large number of "zero-employee unicorns" or "geek nodes". A company with a valuation of one billion US dollars may only have two or three human partners with excellent Taste and grand Vision, acting as "intent generators", directly commanding a silicon-based fleet composed of thousands of Agents through APIs. The core work of human executives is no longer performance appraisal and approval, but "defining valuable problems", letting humans stay out of the loop, and letting AI form a learning closed loop to solve all execution problems.
2.2 Tech Giants as Nations: Computing Power City-States That Issue Tokens
The super giants now called Mag 7 will not end up as traditional commercial companies. Due to the extremely high concentration in the infrastructure stage, a huge amount of capital and the best talents are required to overcome technical difficulties, and these giants will eventually monopolize the most scarce model and data resources on Earth.
They are evolving into "quasi-state institutions" that provide intelligent infrastructure. When Token becomes a standardized measurement unit for the whole society, just like a kilowatt-hour of electricity or a GB of traffic, these city-states are essentially exercising the right of coinage in the digital world. In the future, not only enterprises, but even traditional sovereign states must attach to these city-states and purchase the services of "national-level brains". The core of state power will be completely transferred from "violence monopoly" to "computing power monopoly".
2.3 The Fading of Nations and the True Advent of "The Sovereign Individual"
In the industrial era, states established a huge localized bureaucratic system to manage physical capital and labor. But in the intelligent era, the prophecy in the book "The Sovereign Individual" is being fulfilled at an unprecedented speed: the economies of scale of violence are diminishing, while the leverage of intelligence is infinitely magnified.
When an individual's brainpower is amplified ten thousand times by AI, "creative intelligence talents" with strong metacognition and learning ability will have economic potential comparable to that of small and medium-sized countries. These talents will no longer be attached to specific employers, and even no longer be restricted by traditional national borders.
As a super organization, the state must undergo painful transformation: transforming from a "tax administrator based on land and population" to a "service provider based on computing power and energy". The future game between global powers will no longer be competing for cheap labor or single resources, but competing for who can provide the most complete infrastructure for these "sovereign individuals" and their silicon-based clusters — the cheapest nuclear fusion energy, the most free and inclusive data policies, and the most abundant cooling water resources. Countries that cannot complete this base upgrade will face the double loss of wealth and intelligence, and eventually be abandoned by sovereign individuals.
Chapter 3:
Rewriting Macroeconomics
—— Production Relations in the Era of "Computing Power Standard"
3.1 Re-evaluation of Labor Value: The End of "Capital Hiring Labor"
The underlying assumptions of Marxist political economy and Western microeconomics are both built on the "scarcity of resources". For thousands of years in the past, human time, physical strength and mental labor have all been scarce. But in the next ten years, as machine intelligence can more and more independently take up jobs in complex scenarios and take responsibility for results, "execution" will become the cheapest thing on Earth.
When tens of millions of silicon-based doctors can be copied instantly at almost no cost, the marginal cost of general intellectual labor such as "code writing", "financial analysis" and "copywriting creation" will infinitely approach zero. Macroeconomics that measures value based on "labor time" will completely collapse, and the traditional "capital hiring labor" model will be mercilessly destroyed. In the intelligent era, experience is no longer valuable, and "high cognition crushes high experience" will become an absolute cruel reality.
3.2 The New Wealth Formula: Intent + Computing Power + Energy
If products and execution are no longer scarce, what is scarce? The starting point of future business will regress from "ready-made commodities" back to "dynamic real human intentions".
The old production relations are destroyed, and the new wealth creation formula is rewritten: Humans provide Intent and direction, the silicon-based network provides Compute and execution, and the physical world provides Energy.
Whoever can put forward the question closest to the truth (setting questions), whoever has the authority to mobilize super clusters (computing power), and whoever controls the nuclear fusion reactors for power supply (energy), will hold the distribution right of the new world. In micro business competition, the new rule will become "high dimension devours low dimension". Whoever can seize the first entry for humans to express their real intentions, and efficiently mobilize the entire network's computing power for real-time combined delivery, will grasp the lifeblood of the new economy.
3.3 From "Universal Basic Income (UBI)" to "Universal Basic Compute (UBC)"
Under the macro framework where labor value is completely re-evaluated, the traditional social welfare system built on tax and labor relations will also collapse. The cash distribution (UBI) for ordinary people that Silicon Valley is keen to discuss now is meaningless, because fiat currency will depreciate extremely in the face of computing power explosion.
The ultimate social welfare guarantee in the future is UBC (Universal Basic Compute). Everyone will be allocated a fixed Token quota by society as soon as they are born. You use this computing power to let medical AI treat you, let educational AI solve your doubts, and even let AI generate an exclusive virtual universe for you. The computing power quota you own determines how many survival and development resources you can mobilize in the silicon-based ecosystem. Computing power will replace money and become the basic human right of carbon-based life.
Chapter 4:
The Last Line of Defense for Carbon-Based Life
—— Retreat from "Solving Problems" to "Setting Problems"
4.1 Stop the Suicide Competition in "Logic"
This is the ultimate soul torture facing every modern person: if a silicon chip is ten million times faster than you in logical reasoning, code writing and data analysis and is absolutely accurate, what is the meaning of the existence of carbon-based life?
The answer is: never resist in the absolute advantage domain of silicon-based. The stupidest behavior of humans is to continue to force the next generation to compete in arithmetic, memory and code in the next ten years. In pure logical reasoning and high-dimensional pattern recognition, carbon-based neurons cannot compete with silicon-based clusters connected in parallel with tens of thousands of GPUs at all. Just as humans turned to mental labor after physical labor was replaced by machinery, when conventional mental labor is completely replaced, humans must complete upward transition. We need to hand over all the hard labor of execution, and only retain the control of direction.
2. Return to Biological Significance: Experience, Empathy and "Defining the Loss Function"
We must return to "biologically human". The background color of carbon-based life is our irrationality when facing chaos, the fragility brought by our mortal bodies, the fluctuation of emotions, and the leap of sudden inspiration.
Machines have unlimited computing power and memory bandwidth, but they have no physical bodies, will not feel hungry, and will not experience the fear of death, so they can never truly understand "love", "faith" and "the nothingness of existence". The ultimate value of humans will return to the oldest traits: empathy, deep emotional connection, artistic intuition, and the trace of irrationality when facing chaos.
This is also why in more advanced AI organizations, high-quality offline interpersonal interaction is becoming more and more important. Just as Professor Zeng observed at the strategic co-creation meeting: those in-depth communications that require "extreme sincerity" and are extremely truth-seeking cannot be replaced by machines.
More importantly, humans will become the "definers of the Loss Function". AI is responsible for calculation and execution, but only humans can decide: "What exactly do we want?" This is something that machines can never generate on their own.
4.2 Elite Portraits of the New Era: Taste and Dreamweavers
Knowledge workers in the past few decades are being replaced by a new type of "creative intelligence talents". The future elites will no longer be the "involution kings" with the strongest execution ability, but dreamweavers with extremely high "Taste".
They have strong subjective initiative, powerful metacognition systems, and extremely open minds. AI is responsible for turning dreams into reality, and their responsibility is to create dreams that are grand enough, unique enough, and with excellent taste, and use transparent shared context (Context not Control) to stimulate the collective wisdom of the entire organization. They are no longer managers, but builders of co-creation fields and the final undertakers of risks.
Chapter 5:
The Ultimate Allocation Across the Singularity
—— "Absolute Barbell" and Enclosure for Survival
When we clearly know that the marginal cost of 99% of digital mental labor in the future world will approach zero, and the purchasing power of fiat currency will face huge challenges in the face of "intelligent deflation", we need to cross the traditional financial indicator framework and examine the value of assets from a new evolutionary perspective.
Investment is no longer just to beat inflation, but to establish our survival nodes in the new silicon-based ecosystem. Carbon-based capital allocation must implement an extremely ruthless "Absolute Barbell Strategy": abandon all the tepid middle layers, and push all the chips to the two extremes of "physical laws" and "biological instincts".
The following is the ultimate investment map for carbon-based investors.
The First Pole: Absolute "Weight" — Bet on Thermodynamics and "Computing Power Standard"
Silicon-based life is the most greedy thermodynamic behemoth in the universe. They are omnipotent in the digital world, but their Achilles' heel is in the physical world. The essence of investment is to buy the oxygen that the silicon-based behemoth must breathe.
1. Energy is the Right of Coinage: From Fiat Currency Standard to "Computing Power Standard"
The future hard currency is not the US dollar, but Token (computing power). And the only physical constraint of computing power is energy.
Heavy position in new nuclear energy and power grids: Don't invest in those SaaS software that optimizes electricity bills. Invest in SMR (Small Modular Reactor), nuclear fusion startups, and microgrid technologies that can achieve "off-grid power generation" bypassing the old national power grid. The most valuable real estate in the future is not the office buildings in Manhattan, but the wasteland next to it with an exclusive substation and sufficient cooling water sources.
The "water seller" of computing power infrastructure: Every synaptic connection of the silicon-based brain requires heat dissipation and electrical conduction. Take heavy positions in extreme liquid cooling/immersion cooling technologies, optical interconnection chips (silicon photonics technology), and the most underlying copper and rare earth resources. This is a physical tax that no large model evolution can avoid.