The Expert Podcast

So now it's time for another update on artificial intelligence. You know, this has been a very common subject for us here at Describe TV. The reason why is it's very likely that artificial intelligence (AI) will be the single most impactful subject in the future of finance, employment, the economy, and even the well-being of individual people.

Artificial intelligence has not yet become so mainstream that it's ubiquitous in society, but it is taking over many jobs. It's affecting what's going on behind the scenes with things like contracts, with things like interest rates. The most important effect is going to be in jobs and also as a consumer how you deal with companies.

Going through a couple of articles that will prove this point. As always, we bring the receipts. We don't just say, "Here's our opinion, here's what we think is going to happen." We show the data points pointing to where all this is going.

Let's start with the person who is considered the Godfather of artificial intelligence. He says he fears technology could one day take over humanity. Sounds the alarm on AI being a danger to society. And that's not a new thought. We've all had that consideration or concern in the past, everything from seeing it in the movies and how it takes over wars and controls people.

The next thing is a little bit of a backlash, where in some industries, people are talking about how actual humans are better than artificial intelligence. Technology has its place, but it simply can't compare with the human touch. When it comes to, in this case, real estate, but I'm sure as a consumer, you prefer to talk to an actual human in many of our businesses, everything from insurance to real estate to investigations to document preparation and legal assistance. The most common first line out of anybody's mouth when they call in is, "I want to talk to an actual human. I just want to talk to a real person."

So, this is something that's still in place. Now, that may change. I know you have an opinion about that. Do you think that at some point in the future, humans would rather talk to machines than other humans? Look, social media has already gotten us to transition from face-to-face contact to face-to-phone contact. So maybe at some point, artificial intelligence will be more preferred, maybe it'll be conditioned. I know you have an opinion about that. Let us know in the comments what you think.

What about employment? Well, here's an article that talks about how artificial intelligence is threatening blue-collar jobs, not just office jobs, programmers, advertising agents. It's not coming for white-collar workers only; it's coming to manufacturers. There's even artificial intelligence wait staff that brings food to tables in restaurants.

If you notice in this article, it was in a business publication. Look what's right below: continued jobless claims. So related to employment, it's sweeping across industries, seen as a great threat to many white-collar jobs. It's rapidly advancing manufacturing, showing blue-collar jobs are at risk of being replaced too. So what happens when 10, 15, 20% of jobs go to AI? What happens to all those employees? How do they get paid? How do they pay their bills?

Next article is, why are we hearing so much about artificial intelligence? It's starting to become more popular in the news. And it's not just that it's happening more, there's a reason why it's being featured more in the news. Part of it's being conditioned to have it be normalized where you expect it not to have to talk to an actual human. Part of it is also because companies that are in the business of AI want it to be a bigger thing. They want to sell more of it.

You may have seen this too over the past year. The public hasn't been able to escape the term AI. The concept has been around for a long time, but it's exploded in popularity, seizing public attention. Why is that? Well, here's the bottom line. Venture capital firms are investing in technology. So, it's a money thing, right? It's something where the big money is putting their investments behind this because it saves expenses for a company. If you have a company with 500 employees and you can AI 20% of it, you save 100 employees' worth of salary. $5 million a year forever. It's permanent. It's like an annuity. So that's why you're seeing it more in popular culture, and it's also becoming a point of conflict between people. AI can help companies save money; it also replaces workers. Artists have raised concerns. This is where you have the big strike in Hollywood because the writers and the actors were afraid that AI is going to take over their jobs.

How fast is this advancing? Well, according to one article, AI will be smarter than humans in 5 years. The breakneck pace of AI, it's accelerating rapidly. It's not taking a slow pace to catch up; it's getting better. And if AI is as much of a threat now, in 5 years when it's smarter than humans, how much more is that going to affect employment? And when will it creep into your employment, into your job? According to the prediction of experts, by 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence, will multiply the effective intelligence of a billionfold, merging with the intelligence we've created. So, it can take all the knowledge that's online, all the knowledge that's electronic, put it into a very high calculation environment. Think about if you had to read 20 websites and absorb everything and learn everything and come up with a conclusion. How long that would take? AI can do it instantly because the computers can process much faster than the human brain. And the result will be in 5 years, AI models will be able to reason better than people can.

There's an uncertainty about what's going to happen next. These things do understand meaning. The computers do understand it's a growth phase. We need to think hard about what's going to happen next. You think we should really be prepared for this.

And last, even in online environments, AI agents can roam the internet and replace workers. So, researchers are going to be out of work because chatbots are going to do their job. Right? In this case, it talks about playing games and checking websites, but it can do everything. You just set it and forget it. You don't have to run it like a machine. You don't have to keep pushing buttons. You tell it what you want it to do, you turn it loose on the internet, and it does research, it does analysis, it can prepare documents, it can source records, and produce the results that may have taken two or three people weeks to do. It can do it in maybe an hour with no people.

And in the office environment, AI agents could become more sophisticated, replace office work, and automate any white-collar job. This is a huge commercial opportunity, potentially trillions of dollars. So, that's an opportunity upside for the business, but consequences for society. So, if you don't have people with these jobs, how are they going to pay for the roof over their head, their car, their food, their clothes, right? Sure, it saves money for the company, but if there are no customers to buy what the company is selling, then what's the point?

I know you have an opinion about that. Let us know in the comments what you think about AI taking over, and are there any limits? Will AI ever run into a limit where they say no, we can't do this? AI is not capable. And the bottom line is that AI can do anything we can do. It doesn't just replace boring tasks; it replaces all the tasks. So, any task right now done by a human that you get paid for can be replaced with AI, which is great because you don't have to do the task. But if you're doing that task in exchange for money from your employer, then you don't have to do the task, but you also don't get the money.

Do you think this has a long-term threat against society well-being? And if it does, is that being considered or factored in as it's being deployed? And what's the end game? What happens in four, five, six years, or ten years? What happens to jobs of teachers, of assistants, administrative people, office people, programmers, really anybody, even in management? What happens to those jobs? And do the formerly employed people have some kind of a safety net to where when their jobs are replaced, they have a way to be able to survive in life?

If you're watching this channel for a while, this news that interest rates on mortgages went over 8% shouldn't be a big surprise to you. It shouldn't be news, really. We've been talking about this for more than a year, that rates will go over eight and really probably settle in around 10%. That may seem like a lot when you saw rates at 2 or 3% for many years, 8% or 10% seems like astronomical, but it's really not.

So what do you do about that if you're a renter, if you're a homeowner, if you want to move? What do you do about it? And what are the best next steps? A year and a half ago, if rates were at 5% and they went up to 5 and a half and you thought, well, I'll wait for rates to go down, you probably wish at the time you bought a house because now they're at 8% and home prices are even higher. So now looking forward, you can't go back in time. What do you do next?

And why are rates 8%? If you look at the top of this article, it says in addition to rates being 8%, it says that the Federal Reserve chairman Powell says inflation is still too high and lower economic growth is likely needed to bring it down. That's the breaking news at the top of this article, right? How does the Federal Reserve bring down inflation? They raise interest rates. Rates are going to continue to go up for housing. The only way to prevent higher interest rates from affecting you is to buy a house now, to lock in rates. And you might say, I don't want to lock in 8%. Well, when you get an interest rate on a mortgage, remember, you're only locking in from the upside. If you buy a house and get a mortgage at 8% today and rates go up, breathe a sigh of relief because you're not paying the higher rate. Your rate doesn't go up on your mortgage once you buy a house. If the rates go down to 6% or 5%, which they probably won't do, but if they do, you can benefit from that too because you can refinance. You can refinance lower, but you don't have to refinance higher. So that's how you can lock it in.

What about buying a house? Is it a good idea? Well, let's take a look at a couple of things. First of all, the defense of homeownership has been blamed for everything from nimbyism to urban sprawl. So why do I still want to do it? Well, there's a lot of reasons why you want to do it. First of all, the price you pay each month for your home does not go up. If you are a homeowner, if you're a renter at the end of your lease, your landlord could decide I want to jack your rent up $500. I want to kick you out and rent it to somebody else. I want to sell the property. So you're not guaranteed from year to year. Every single year, you have to cross your fingers and hope that you get to stay in your house. With a purchased home that you own, even with a mortgage, the only way you can get kicked out is if you stop paying your mortgage. That's it. Everything else, you own it.

What else is a reason to own a house? Well, according to some new research, renting can age you faster than smoking or obesity, mostly because of stress, but also because of lifestyle. If you want to live longer, you should buy a home. Buying a home is a life or death event, maybe an exaggeration. I get it. It may be hard to imagine being able to buy a house. You need money down, you need good credit, you need a job, you need to find a home to buy. But there are ways to be able to do that.

We'll look at very shortly. Dave Ramsey, love him or hate him, agree or disagree, his opinion is the same. Don't wait for mortgage rates to go down to buy a house because they're probably not going to go down. But even if they do, you can benefit from that because if the rates go back down to five or six, probably won't, you can refinance. If the rates go up to 10%, now you're stuck because now you have to buy at 10%.

Everybody who waited when rates went from 3 and a half to 5 and a half said, "Oh, I'll wait for them to go back down." They're probably kicking themselves now because your housing payment would be a lot higher. How do you buy a house if you're currently renting, have mediocre credit, don't have a lot of money for a down payment, and can't afford a lot? How do you do it? Well, let's take a look.

The first thing you do is you find a home. Find a house that's somewhere around 200,000 to 250. Here's just one example we found it in Virginia, nice enough house, 1,700 sq ft, three bedroom, three bath. This one also happens to be on two acres. I'm not going to go into the house; you've seen many homes we've shown before on our website homes.com. There are houses between 2 and 250 all over the country that are decent houses. They may not be your dream house. They may not be an HGTV feature house, but at least it's a home that you can live in and be established in.

We recommend that you buy the cheapest house you can stand, even if it's not exactly what you want, not the greatest condition, not the best paint. The only reason that landlords with apartments to rent take advantage is because they make it look new. When you buy it, they put new paint, maybe a new countertop, and that's it. But now you're at the mercy of them just to have something flashy. Buy something that's even a little bit dingy. This one's not too bad if you look at the pictures. It's not the end of the world, right?

So if you take this house for 275, and you might say, "Well, I don't have a down payment." Well, there are down payment programs that are 3% down payment. Well, 3% of 275 is roughly about six or $7,000. That's about what you need to come up with for the first payment security on an apartment, right? So you probably have the down payment money, or you can come up with it. Then what you do is you get a mortgage.

Well, how much would a mortgage cost on a 275 property? Well, if you put down really almost nothing and you finance 270, your mortgage payment is $2,000 at 8.6%. Let's bump it down to 8%. Well, now you're under two grand. So roughly for two grand, you're in a single-family home. Your rent's not going to go up. Your money is going towards appreciation. If you rent an apartment, obviously, you know this, if the apartment complex is worth more money in five years, you don't get any of that. If this house is worth more money in five years, that money belongs to you. And more importantly, your payment doesn't go up. It's $1,989 forever, which is actually not true. After 30 years, if you get a 30-year mortgage, your payment goes to zero. So whatever age you are now, add 30 years. If you're 40 years old, when you're 70, you'll have no monthly payment, which is probably a good thing because when you're 70, you'll be retired.

What if you got a 20-year mortgage? How much would it be? A 20-year mortgage is only $200, $300 more. So imagine that you buy this house for $275, you put down $55,000 down payment, you finance 270, you pay $2,200 a month. That's probably what your rent would be anyway on an apartment. And in 20 years, your rent goes to zero because you'll have paid off your mortgage. If you really want to get crazy, what about a 15-year? You could pay $2,500 a month, which is probably what your rent would be. And in 15 years, your monthly payment for your house is zero. Imagine you're 26 years old. You get a 15-year mortgage. You pay $2,500 a month. When you're 41, zero. No payment. How great would that be?

Now, yeah, you have things like insurance you have to pay and real estate taxes, but those are going to be minimal on a $250,000 house. In addition, you never have to worry about the landlord kicking you out or your rent going up. Do you have to fix your own sink? Yep. Do you have to maybe paint once in a while? Probably. Change the filter on your air conditioner? Yep. There's some things you have to do, but those are things that a lot of times don't cost any actual money. You could do it with your own sweat equity, your own labor, if you wanted to, and not have to worry about rent.

It sounds like a big deal when you say, "I don't want to pay 8%." Don't let the 8% throw you because interest rates have been much higher in the past. And don't throw you in terms of, "I don't want this house." You don't have to buy that house. There are tens of thousands of houses all over the country in every city, every state that are in the twos. You can probably find one for 250. And if you found one for 250 and put the same $5,000 down and finance 245 for 15 years, now you're at 2,300. Buy the cheapest house you can stand. This is a strategy of how to deal with modern life.

The rates aren't going to go down. Home prices aren't going to go down, more than likely according to the evidence. It's not an opinion. It's the evidence is showing this to be the case. This is how you can prepare for 2027, 2028, to where if you have a lease that's coming due right now to renew, imagine how much that lease payment on your apartment is going to be three years from now if it went up last year, if it went up $200 last year. In four years, even if it goes up $200 each of four years, that's $800 more. Do you want to pay that $800 more a year? I'm sorry, $800 more per month times 12 months. That's $10,000. If your rent goes up $200 each lease term for the next four years, that's going to cost you $10,000 a year for the rest of your life.

Where buying a home, your mortgage payment is fixed, locked in place. This is what to do about inflation. Certain things you can't do. You can't change the gas price. You can't change the grocery bill. Those are going to go up. But if you buy a house, you can lock in that one largest expense you have to prevent inflation from affecting you. There. That's what you do about inflation. That's what you do about rent increases. You don't want to move every couple of years because your rent went up because it's a pain in the neck. It costs money. You lose security deposit. You have to come up with more money. You have to re-get new drapes. And you have to spend a lot of money. Buy a house. It's a one-time deal.

And I know it's tough. You might have to work on your credit. You might have to save up a little bit more money than if you only have three or $4,000 in the bank, or maybe if you're going to get that back from your security deposit on your current apartment, you might have to put some more money with it. But that's where if you save $100 bucks a month for a year or two, you can get to that point. I know it's easier said than done. I get it. Everybody right now is stressed. Your grocery bill is high. At the end of the week, you're living paycheck to paycheck. You don't have any money left over. I get it. I'm not trying to oversimplify it.

But if you really want out of the rat race, this is one way of doing it. It's probably not going to happen because you're going to get a big raise. Do you think your employer is going to give you a 20% raise? No, they're giving you 2 or 3% raises every year. So the way out of the rat race isn't trying to earn your way out of it because earnings aren't going to go up. You saw in our last video, we talked about AI taking over jobs. You're lucky if earnings are going to go up at all, if not go away. So the way to be able to escape from being an employee is to become an owner. And the way to become an owner is to own real estate, to have a piece of the rock. And what are you going to do with your money? You're not going to spend $275,000 on candy and toys, you're going to buy a house. So might as well do it now.

And if you have a job, if you're making money, and you have good credit, it's easier to do it now than it ever has been before. And that's not just my opinion. That's according to the evidence. That's according to the data. That's according to the evidence. And you saw in our last story, you don't want to wait for rates to go down because they're not going to go down. And you don't want to wait for the prices to go down because they're not going to go down. If anything, they're going to go up. So that's how you can deal with inflation, rising rents, job loss, change in family situation, market conditions, living situation. Buy a house. It's probably the best thing you can do. What do you think?