- Alexis Ohanian predicts AI will drive demand for more raw human experiences.
- The Reddit cofounder said that in 10 years, live theater would be more popular than ever.
- He said no matter what jobs are replaced by AI, humans would always have an advantage in empathy.
Alexis Ohanian has predicted that in a future oversaturated with artificial intelligence, people will seek out more raw, emotive human experiences.
And in 10 years, he said, live theater will be more popular than ever.
The 41-year-old, who cofounded the social-media platform Reddit in 2005, told the "On Purpose with Jay Shetty" podcast this week that AI would soon have an undeniable impact on nearly every aspect of society, including the entertainment sector.
Ohanian, who also founded the venture-capital firm Seven Seven Six in 2020, said the industry would see a big shift when AI makes on-screen entertainment better, faster, cheaper, and more dynamic — which he said was happening.
Every screen we look at will become so programmed to show us "what we want, when we want it, how we want it," he said, adding that "a part of our humanity will miss, you know, thousands of years ago when we were sitting around a campfire and that great storyteller was doing the voices and the impressions."
"That's ingrained in our species," he said.
And that kind of raw, in-person magic will feel novel, he said.
"I actually bet 10 years from now, live theater will be more popular than ever," Ohanian said. "Because, again, we'll look at all these screens with all these AI-polished images, and we'll actually want to sit in a room with other humans to be captivated for a couple hours in a dark room to feel the goosebumps of seeing live human performances."
The same is true for sports, he told Shetty. "We need humans doing that. We need to feel their pain and their success and their triumphs," he said. "Those are the areas that get me most hopeful."
Ohanian suggested that AI couldn't replace genuine human empathy.
He said that no matter what jobs robots take over from us in the future, fields of work in which empathy is a core component would have an advantage. And that's why one of the most important, marketable skills he's teaching his kids is empathy, he said.