Mo Gawdat warns AI could unleash 15‑year dystopian disruption

Gawdat’s warning‑heavy narrative is less about timelines in a technical sense and more about institutional capacity to absorb rapid change. His core argument—that corporate and political incentives will drive AI systems into critical roles before safety and governance are mature—is uncomfortable precisely because it mirrors how previous platform shifts unfolded. When he describes running a startup with two people and “many AIs” doing the work of hundreds of engineers, he’s giving a micro‑level picture of what agentic systems plus good tooling can already do. Scale that across white‑collar sectors and you get real pressure on labor markets well before theoretical AGI arrives. ([cronista.com](https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/mo-godwat-58-anos-exdirectivo-de-google-los-proximos-15-anos-seran-el-infierno/))

For the AGI race, voices like Gawdat’s are forcing a reframing: the risk may not be a single catastrophic misalignment event, but a decade‑plus of compounding social and political stress as institutions chase efficiency and competitive advantage. That doesn’t slow technical progress; if anything, fear of falling behind may accelerate deployment. But it could trigger heavier regulatory interventions, nationalization of certain AI capabilities, or public backlashes that redirect research priorities. Whether you agree with his dystopian arc or not, his critique of incentive structures at big labs and platforms is a useful counterweight to purely technical optimism.