AI Risks Cost You Everything?

The Real Threat Isn’t AI—It’s Our Shrinking Population.

While leaders obsess over AI’s dangers, a far greater crisis looms: the collapsing workforce. As populations age and birth rates plummet, we face an economic stagnation reminiscent of the Great Depression. The solution isn’t to fear AI, but to urgently leverage it as our most powerful tool for productivity and knowledge preservation.

The fear-driven narrative of AI replacing humanity is a dangerous distraction. We have no choice about using AI; the true challenge is how to use it wisely to sustain growth and well-being. The existential threat isn’t artificial intelligence destroying us—it’s human intelligence failing to adapt while our workforce shrinks. Innovation has always enhanced society, from fire to the internet, and AI is no different. It cannot replicate our uniquely human traits: intuition, moral reasoning, and free will. Our “North Star” must be using AI to enhance these qualities, not degrade them.

Strategic leaders are moving beyond fear to action. Here are four constructive priorities for integrating AI:

1. Create a Digital CEO: Every leader should develop an AI alter ego to communicate personally and transparently with stakeholders, demonstrating control and confidence in the technology.
2. Preserve Institutional Knowledge: As experienced employees retire, AI offers an inexpensive way to capture their expertise and coach the next generation, filling critical talent gaps.
3. Embrace Extended Retirement: Create flexible plans for healthy, active retirees to continue contributing, leveraging their invaluable experience in a new era of work.
4. Launch an AI Competition: Incentivize employees to submit innovative AI ideas that boost productivity and improve services without replacing people.

Hesitation is the greater danger. Stagnation threatens our competitiveness and quality of life. The path forward requires decisive leadership—moving with clarity to amplify our humanity through intelligent automation. This is how we turn a demographic crisis into an era of unprecedented human progress.