Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, has offered reassurance to those worried that artificial intelligence (AI) might lead to widespread job losses. Speaking virtually at a conference hosted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney, Altman admitted he was mistaken in expecting AI to have already eliminated more entry-level white-collar jobs. According to a Reuters report, the employment impact has been less severe than he initially feared.
Altman's Changing Views on AI and Employment
Altman stated that he and his company's executives had been roughly right about OpenAI's predictions when ChatGPT launched in 2022. However, he acknowledged they were pretty wrong about the social and economic implications. "I'm delighted to be wrong about this. I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened," Altman told CBA Chief Executive Matt Comyn.
He added, "I now think I understand more about why it hasn't, and I'm obviously grateful, but that is an area where my intuitions were just off." Altman noted that concerns about AI-driven job losses were genuine at the time and that discussions about potential risks were necessary. He remarked, "People are like 'oh you could have saved the world a lot of fear mongering and a lot of doom and gloom', but at the time I was like 'I see this is a real risk we should probably talk about it' and it still may."
Why Human Interaction Matters
Altman explained that his views shifted partly because of the importance of human interaction in many professions. He suggested some aspects of work remain difficult to replace with AI systems. "We really do care about our interactions with people, and this thing, which is a huge amount of my time, is not something that I can imagine myself outsourcing to an AI anytime soon," he said.
According to Altman, that realization changed how he views the future of employment. "It really, in both positive and negative ways, updated me to thinking that the jobs picture is likely to be very different than we thought," he explained. He also pushed back against predictions of widespread employment disruption, adding, "I don't think we're going to have the kind of jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate or talk about."
Altman did not provide specific employment figures during the discussion, though he has previously spoken about the possibility of industry-wide job cuts linked to advances in AI. His latest comments suggest a more nuanced view, emphasizing that while AI will transform the workplace, it may not lead to mass unemployment as some have predicted.
