I was listening to the conversation between Reid Hoffman and Trevor Noah on the Greymatter podcast yesterday, and one of the topics was on the impact of AI on people and jobs.

Trevor Noah made a comment about how the objective should be to not save jobs but to take care of the people affected by jobs that can now be done reasonably well and cheaply by AI.

This is a great example of the product management maxim to solve for outcomes over outputs.

The outcome we are chasing is to ensure that people whose jobs might be rendered unnecessary as AI can start doing them at an acceptable quality and much lower cost are not adversely affected by the loss of their jobs, that they don't lose their livelihoods and their sense of purpose and dignity that comes with their jobs.

Thinking about just saving their jobs is short-sighted and narrowing down on a specific output.

But there are other ways of achieving the same outcome and not hold back technological progress.

I've always appreciated Trevor Noah for his humour, but this conversation shined light on the side of him that is an insightful thinker beyond comedy.

Link to the episode