Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, appeared to tip his hand in a recent interview when he chastised other business leaders for their optimistic views on the future of AI.
Many AI researchers make the false claim that their work will simply serve as a complement and that no one would ever be replaced by AI, Altman told the journal. Jobs will undoubtedly disappear, end of story.
While most people would find this news disappointing, the CEO doesn’t appear overly concerned about it. Overall, he claims that an AI-powered world will be better, however it sounds like he is unsure of exactly what that world will look like.
We probably won’t want to return, said Altman
Recession Vibes
Altman gave teaching as an example of a profession where people would always prefer humans, which was ironic considering that in the same interview, he expressed excitement about the possibility of AI tutors who would give every child a better education than the best, richest, and smartest child on Earth currently receives.
Nothing about this is really shocking. Since ChatGPT was made available to the public this past fall, individuals have started to worry a lot about being replaced by AI as well as actually losing their jobs to it.
Early in June, Challenger, Grey & Christmas, an executive coaching company, claimed that roughly 4,000 jobs had already been lost as a result of AI, and in March, Goldman Sachs forecast that a staggering 300 million jobs may be lost as a result of the technology. The investment company, which has invested in AI and advises its clients to do the same, predicted that AI might increase the gross domestic product by 7% the very next month, which may indicate where its allegiance lay.
Altman’s other project, Worldcoin, is motivated by a desire for a cryptocurrency-based universal basic income, so it would be unfair to say that he doesn’t care about people’s livelihoods. Nevertheless, it’s not exactly a good feeling to be informed by a tech leader with a net worth estimated to be between $250 and $500 million that his technology will lead to job loss.
This appears to be the beginning of the AI revolution, and who knows what may happen next.
