SYDNEY — Sam Altman, the president of OpenAI, said he was wrong in predicting artificial intelligence would have already caused widespread losses of entry-level white-collar jobs, saying the feared “jobs apocalypse” tied to AI adoption has not materialized.
The statement comes at the same time OpenAI has announced a $250 million fund to help those whose jobs are affected by AI.
Speaking at a conference hosted by Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney, Altman said he had expected artificial intelligence to have a greater impact on employment by now, according to Reuters.
“I’m delighted to be wrong about this,” Altman said, according to Reuters. “I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened.”
Altman said he now better understands why those disruptions have not occurred as quickly as expected.
“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,” he said, according to Reuters.
‘Excessive Fear’
The OpenAI CEO added that while he believed the risks warranted discussion, concerns over AI-driven job losses may have contributed to excessive fear about the technology’s economic effects.
“People are like ‘oh you could have saved the world a lot of fear mongering and a lot of doom and gloom,’” Altman said, according to Reuters. “But at the time I was like ‘I see this is a real risk we should probably talk about it’ and it still may.”
Altman said OpenAI executives were “roughly right” about many technological predictions made following the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, but “pretty wrong” regarding the social and economic effects of the technology.
Additional Pushback
His comments come as businesses across industries continue integrating AI tools into operations while debate persists over the technology’s impact on employment.
Earlier this month, Matt Garman, chief executive of Amazon Web Services, also pushed back on predictions of a severe AI-related employment crisis.
“Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but I don’t think that’s true,” Garman told The Wall Street Journal when asked about concerns AI could trigger unemployment comparable to the Great Depression. “I think it’s the potential to create massive value, and I think there’s going to be new and different types of jobs,” Garman said, according to the Journal.
$250 Million Fund Announced
Separately, OpenAI said its non-profit arm is committing at least $250 million to help workers disrupted by AI.
According to the company, the new initiative from the OpenAI Foundation will cover grants, partnerships and “direct work” to assist workers and economies impacted by the rise of AI.
“Economic systems exist, in principle, to give people security, autonomy, and the ability to build purposeful lives. Too often they fall short,” the foundation said in a statement. “AI is going to lead to huge economic changes as it makes previously scarce capabilities far more widely available, and there is deep uncertainty about how far and how fast they will go.”
‘Short Window’
The foundation added that the range of possibilities offers an opportunity to develop systems that let people live better, but the pace of change means “the window to get this right is shorter than we’re used to, and the cost of getting it wrong is immense,” the foundation added.
Where Program Will Focus
The program will focus on investing in “independent measurement and forecasting infrastructure” to gain a clearer picture of AI’s effect on the economy, the company said.
It added that it will also help support workers and communities “through near-term disruption,” as well as bolstering efforts to organize “post-AI political economies and sharing economic gains broadly for people around the world.”
