modernwritinglab

Room 04 · after Games

The Future

What all of this means for you, in real numbers.

You know how the machine works. Now zoom out: which jobs it touches, who actually uses it, who builds it, what people are afraid of, and why the next big step has arms and wheels. Every stop has something to try, and every number has a source you can click.

0 of 6 explored
  1. 01Jobs
  2. 02Users
  3. 03Players
  4. 04Opinions
  5. 05Software
  6. 06Robots

Stop 01 · Jobs

Which jobs does AI touch?

In 2025, Microsoft researchers read 200,000 real conversations people had with Bing Copilot and matched them to the work tasks of hundreds of U.S. jobs. The score says how much of a job's work AI is already helping with. Guess first.

Which job overlaps more with what AI already does?

    Score from 0 to 1, top and bottom 15 of 40 listed. Tomlinson et al., Microsoft Research, “Working with AI,” July 2025 ↗

    170M
    new jobs created worldwide by 2030, while 92M are displaced. Net: +78M.
    World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report, Jan 2025 ↗
    22%
    of today's jobs will be disrupted (created or destroyed) by 2030. Fastest shrinking: cashiers, administrative assistants and graphic designers.
    World Economic Forum, Jan 2025 ↗
    −13%
    The one to notice at 17: employment for 22 to 25 year olds in the most AI-exposed jobs fell 13% compared with less exposed jobs. Older workers in the same jobs held steady.
    Brynjolfsson, Chandar & Chen, Stanford, Aug 2025 ↗
    41%
    of employers plan to shrink their workforce where AI automates tasks. The same report says the fastest growing jobs include farmworkers, delivery drivers, builders, nurses and teachers.
    World Economic Forum, Jan 2025 ↗

    Stop 02 · Users

    Asking vs. working

    Almost everyone has tried a chatbot. Far fewer pay for one and put it to work. Before you look: out of every 100 people who use AI, how many do you think pay for it?

    ChatGPT, February 2026

    Use it every week900M
    Pay for it50M

    That's about 1 in 18 weekly users (50 ÷ 900 = 5.6%).

    OpenAI figures reported by TechCrunch, Feb 27, 2026 ↗

    70%+
    of ChatGPT messages are not about work, up from 53% a year earlier. Practical advice, looking things up and writing make up nearly 80% of all chats.
    OpenAI & Harvard economists, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER, Sept 2025 ↗
    57%
    of U.S. teens use chatbots to search for information, the top use. 54% use them for schoolwork, and 1 in 10 do all or most of their schoolwork with AI.
    Pew Research Center, Feb 2026 (1,458 teens) ↗
    61% → 21%
    61% of U.S. adults used AI in six months, 19% daily. But only 21% of U.S. workers say they use AI in their job.
    Menlo Ventures, 2025 ↗ · Pew, Sept 2025 survey ↗

    Stop 03 · The key players

    Who builds it, who runs it

    A handful of companies make the models almost everyone uses. Tap each card to meet the people behind it. Numbers are the latest the company announced, with the date.

    Stop 04 · Opinions

    Will AI take over?

    Real polls, real people. Guess each answer with the slider, then reveal it. Watch how far apart the public and the experts are.

    Worried that AI could end the human race? U.S. adults, September 2026

    More people (72%) worry about AI causing mass unemployment than about extinction.

    YouGov, Sept 11–14, 2026 (18,238 U.S. adults) ↗

    Stop 05 · Software

    AI is software

    A chatbot is a program. It runs on computers in a data center and sends words to your screen. It has no hands. On its own, it can't open a door, pick something up or hurt you physically.

    But software still matters

    When AI causes harm today, it travels through screens and the people who believe them: cloned voices on scam calls, fake videos, made-up facts that someone trusts. That's why the Learning Lab teaches you to check AI's work.

    $893M
    lost by Americans to scams that used AI in 2025, across 22,364 complaints to the FBI. Real losses are likely higher.
    FBI, 2025 Internet Crime Report ↗

    Brain only, or does it need a body?

    Sort each task. Can software alone do it, or does AI need a robot body?

      To change the physical world, AI needs a body. That's why robotics is the big push.

      Stop 06 · Robots

      AI gets a body

      Robots are how AI reaches into the real world: factories, warehouses, streets and maybe one day your kitchen. Here's where they actually are right now.

      New factory robots installed in 2024. Tap a country.

      542,000 robots were installed worldwide in 2024, and 4.66 million are at work right now.

      International Federation of Robotics, World Robotics 2025, Sept 2025 ↗

      500K
      paid Waymo robotaxi rides every week across 10 U.S. cities, up tenfold from 50,000 in May 2024.
      TechCrunch, Mar 2026 ↗
      13K–18K
      humanoid robots sold worldwide in 2025, nearly 90% of them Chinese. Unitree sold about 5,500; Tesla, Figure and Agility about 150 each.
      Rest of World, citing Omdia and IDC, Feb 2026 ↗
      700K+
      factory robots a year expected to be installed by 2028.
      IFR, Sept 2025 ↗

      Reality check

      Researchers asked: of all the physical tasks in U.S. jobs, how many can today's robots do? Then: how many can they do cheaper than a person?

      Robots can do?
      Cheaper than a person?

      Legate-Yang & Massenkoff, Anthropic, “Can we predict the jobs robots will do?”, Sept 30, 2026 ↗

      The big picture

      Five things to take with you

      1. Words first, hands later. AI overlaps most with jobs made of reading, writing and answering. Hands-on jobs in messy places are the safest for now.
      2. Entry-level is where it shows. The first measured drop is in young workers' jobs. Skills that AI can't fake (judgment, checking, people) are your edge.
      3. Most people only ask. Hundreds of millions chat with AI; a few percent pay for it and put it to work. Learning to do real work with it is a head start.
      4. A few companies, huge stakes. Firms worth close to a trillion dollars each are racing to build it. Know who they are and what they want.
      5. Bodies are next. Software can't touch the world. Robots can, and they're spreading, slowly, because they're still expensive.

      Sources

      Every number on this page comes from one of these. Dates are when the data was published or collected. Numbers about fast-moving companies go out of date quickly, so check the date.

      1. Tomlinson, Jaffe, Wang, Counts & Suri (Microsoft Research). Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Implications of Generative AI. July 2025.
      2. World Economic Forum. Future of Jobs Report 2025. January 8, 2025.
      3. Brynjolfsson, Chandar & Chen (Stanford). Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of AI. August 2025.
      4. Menlo Ventures. 2025: The State of Consumer AI. June 26, 2025.
      5. Chatterji, Cunningham, Deming, Hitzig, Ong, Shan & Wadman. How People Use ChatGPT. NBER Working Paper 34255, September 2025.
      6. TechCrunch. ChatGPT reaches 900M weekly active users. February 27, 2026.
      7. Pew Research Center. What the data says about Americans' views of artificial intelligence. March 12, 2026.
      8. Pew Research Center. How Teens Use and View AI. February 24, 2026.
      9. Pew Research Center. How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence. April 3, 2025.
      10. YouGov. Liberals are increasingly likely to worry about AI ending humanity. September 2026.
      11. Grace et al. Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AI. January 2024.
      12. Anthropic. Anthropic raises $65B Series H at $965B valuation. May 28, 2026.
      13. TechCrunch. OpenAI reportedly in talks to raise $30B round at $1.4T valuation. September 29, 2026.
      14. iPhone in Canada. Google Gemini app surpasses 1 billion monthly active users. August 12, 2026.
      15. CNBC (via NBC San Diego). Mark Zuckerberg says Meta AI has 1 billion monthly active users. May 28, 2025.
      16. Business Standard. Microsoft retains 27% stake in OpenAI valued at $135 bn. October 28, 2025.
      17. Vice. SpaceX merges with xAI. February 2026.
      18. NVIDIA. Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026. February 25, 2026.
      19. The Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024.
      20. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. 2025 Internet Crime Report. 2026.
      21. International Federation of Robotics. World Robotics 2025: Global robot demand in factories doubles over 10 years. September 25, 2025.
      22. Rest of World. China is winning the humanoid robot race while Tesla's Optimus lags. February 2026.
      23. TechCrunch. Waymo's skyrocketing ridership in one chart. March 27, 2026.
      24. International Federation of Robotics. Top 5 Global Robotics Trends 2026. January 8, 2026.
      25. Legate-Yang & Massenkoff (Anthropic). Can we predict the jobs robots will do? September 30, 2026.

      Photo credits

      All photos come from Wikimedia Commons under open licenses. Each link opens the original file and its license page.

      • Sam Altman: photo by 首相官邸ホームページ / Office of the Prime Minister of Japan Official Website, CC BY 4.0
      • Dario Amodei: photo by TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0
      • Demis Hassabis: photo by John Sears, CC BY-SA 4.0
      • Sundar Pichai: photo by Lukasz Kobus (European Commission), CC BY 4.0
      • Mark Zuckerberg: photo by The White House, Public domain
      • Satya Nadella: photo by Brian Smale and Microsoft, CC BY-SA 4.0
      • Elon Musk: photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0
      • Jensen Huang: photo by The White House, Public domain
      • Waymo robotaxi: photo by Alexis Doine, CC0
      • Atlas robot: photo by DARPA, Public domain
      • Tesla Optimus: photo by Sikander, CC BY-SA 4.0
      • Unitree G1: photo by Sayanesy, CC0
      • Industrial robot arm: photo by KUKA Roboter GmbH, Bachmann, Public domain

      That's the big picture. Keep going.

      Your progress

      The stops you've explored on this page. It stays saved on this device.

        Lab directory

        About · who made this