Altman says AI unlikely to lead to ‘jobs apocalypse’

OPENAI CEO SAM ALTMAN said on Tuesday the rapid development and adoption of AI would not lead to a global “jobs apocalypse” and the technology had not claimed as many white-collar jobs as he had feared.

- SCOTT MURDOCH

Speaking virtually at a Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) conference in Sydney, Altman said he was initially concerned about the impact AI would have on global employment levels.

He said he and his executives had been “roughly right” on the technological predictions made by OpenAI when it launched ChatGPT in 2022. But he said they were “pretty wrong” on 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 in an interview.

“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.