In a conversation on The Diary of a CEO podcast, he said the rise of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could wipe out most human jobs within 15 years, with the middle class being hit the hardest.

Drawing from personal experience, Gawdat shared how his AI startup — focused on building emotionally intelligent systems — runs with just three people. A few years ago, he said, that same operation would have needed 300.

A terrifying societal collapse worthy of Hollywood can never be entirely ruled out. But according to one former Google executive, it may come a lot sooner than we expected.