Alessandro Aresu: “I want to delegate invoices and paperwork to AI, not human interaction.”

Outside the “old folks'” dinner in Taipei, an eight-year-old boy clutches a sign that reads: “Dear Jensen, I've watched your videos, I play with puppies like you, and in ten years, I want to work for Nvidia.” Inside the restaurant are the leaders of TSMC, Foxconn, and the major companies that are building global artificial intelligence. Outside, kids dream of becoming engineers. And the scene is repeated: in China, lines of seniors bring their computers to have new AI systems installed, while in Europe, there is still debate about whether to try them or not. It almost seems as if the real revolution is not technology, but the speed at which certain countries embrace it compared to others. The point is, we often think of artificial intelligence as a matter of algorithms, job risks, or Neuralink-style science fiction. But in reality, the game is played out in terms of personal and collective productivity, in terms of who will be able to orchestrate these new “agents” – software that creates tickets, invoices, and research, and organizes our digital lives – and who will remain on the sidelines. Alessandro Aresu puts it bluntly: “I want to delegate invoices and paperwork to AI, not human interaction. The real question is: What do I want to keep for myself? Where does my value lie?” And here comes the game changer: it's not enough to adopt the new technology; we need to understand what to keep and what to let go. In China, the AI Plus program is driving artificial intelligence into every sector: aerospace, logistics, mining. Personal and corporate productivity skyrocket: agents working at night while you sleep, companies downsizing because dozens of agents can do the work of many. But this creates a new divide: those who know how to orchestrate agents gain ground, while those who lag behind risk becoming part of an “army of the invisible.” And here, the anecdote from the Taipei dinner comes back: the children making posters for Jensen Huang are not a quaint detail; they are evidence of a society where technological curiosity is part of popular culture, where kids dream of designing semiconductors in middle school. In Italy, on the other hand, there is a risk of falling into the “evolutionary trap”: if you fall behind by a few years, it feels like an eternity. And while in Asia, soft power also takes the form of lobster costumes at OpenClaw parties—an open-source AI platform installed by thousands of people—Europe is debating whether technology is a friend or a foe. But the issue isn’t just enthusiasm: there is a school of tech skeptics warning about the risks. MIT Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu argues that the productivity boost from AI will be minimal, perhaps only 1% of GDP. Others, such as Erik Brynjolfsson, instead predict J-shaped growth, with an explosion in the future. The debate is heated: who is right? According to Aresu, the question is not just “how much the pie grows,” but how it is distributed. And this is where the fear of “ghost GDP” comes in: phantom growth where GDP rises, but wages fall and the middle class shrinks. Capital produces, labor shrinks, and we risk a society of the super-rich, digital superstars, and a mass of the excluded. But beware: the symmetry between “high-level” jobs and less skilled jobs is shrinking. Artificial intelligence can enable those who were excluded to move up the ladder, but it can also make the middle class disappear. And if the energy costs to run these AI agents rise too high, it could once again become cost-effective to use humans, like the old “mechanical Turk” who pretended to be a machine. History repeats itself: globalization has squeezed wages, and now AI threatens to do the same. The solution? It's not just a technical or market-based one. Aresu quotes Adam Smith: “Defense is more important than opulence.” In other words, the state must intervene, protect its strategic interests, and not leave everything to market forces. The United States is moving toward a model of state capitalism similar to China's—just consider the sale of TikTok America, where the government took a $10 billion “commission.” In Europe, too, says Aresu, what is needed is political capitalism, not a naïve form of liberalism that cedes the field to others. After all, Italy invented state capitalism with IRI, and the Americans copied the New Deal from us. However, the real question remains: Will technology shape the new world order, or will it be geopolitical power dynamics? For Aresu, it is a trilemma: economic interdependence, geopolitics, and technological change are all pulling at the same rope. But one thing is certain: anyone who thinks that technology is neutral is mistaken. It is always political. Because the AI game is not just about who builds it, but about who decides how to integrate it into society and into everyday life. If you want an idea to stick with you, this is the phrase to repeat: the value lies not in adopting technology, but in deciding what to keep human and what to delegate to machines. If you recognized yourself in the dilemma between productivity and humanity, on Lara Notes you can mark it with I'm In: it's not a like; it's a statement that this idea matters to you. And if, in a few days' time, you find yourself telling someone the story of the boy from Taipei or the battle over vintage T-shirts among economists, on Lara Notes you can tag the people who were with you using Shared Offline: it's your way of saying that that conversation mattered more than a thousand digital shares. This discussion is brought to you by Chora Media and has saved you nearly an hour of listening.