OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledges that AI can change the workforce and substitute some jobs for good — however as a substitute of specializing in AI’s results on latest faculty graduates, Altman is extra involved concerning the know-how’s influence on soon-to-be retirees.
In a podcast episode of “Large Conversations” with Cleo Abram, launched final week, Altman mentioned that he was “extra anxious” about what AI meant for “the 62-year-old that does not need to go retrain” than the “22-year-old” simply graduating faculty. The rationale? Younger persons are “one of the best” at readily adjusting to adjustments introduced on by know-how, even when that know-how replaces jobs.
“I believe it’s very true that some courses of jobs will completely go away,” Altman mentioned on the podcast. “This all the time occurs, and younger persons are one of the best at adapting to this.”
Altman talked about that if he had been 22 years previous and simply ending faculty, he can be excited and “really feel just like the luckiest child in all of historical past” due to the brand new alternatives that AI supplies. Latest grads can use AI to begin new firms, write code, and fill in any gaps of their expertise.
“You could have entry to those instruments that may allow you to do what used to take groups of tons of,” Altman mentioned.
However for older staff, it may be troublesome to upskill and discover ways to use AI. In keeping with an AARP survey launched final 12 months, the vast majority of Individuals age 50 and older (85%) have heard of AI, however lower than 33% are obsessed with it. Solely two in 5 older staff declare to be educated concerning the know-how. One other survey in Could discovered that 31% of older workers see AI each as a risk and a possibility. Below the risk class, most respondents (61%) indicated that AI had the potential to exchange staff.
Even when Altman is not anxious about AI’s influence on faculty graduates, different CEOs are sounding the alarm. In Could, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, predicted that AI would wipe out half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs inside the subsequent 5 years. Billionaire Mark Cuban had a softer prediction, stating in the identical month that AI would substitute jobs, however result in extra employment total.
Altman mentioned on the podcast that AI makes it now attainable for one particular person to create an organization totally on their very own that can attain unicorn standing, or obtain a valuation of $1 billion or extra, for the primary time. That particular person can create a services or products that provides worth to the world by studying AI instruments and utilizing them to formulate novel options, Altman mentioned.
“You could have entry to those instruments that may allow you to do what used to take groups of tons of,” Altman acknowledged on the podcast.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Picture by Andrew Harnik/Getty Pictures
In the meantime, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang not too long ago mentioned that AI opens the doorways to customers (of all ages) by equalizing the taking part in area of know-how, permitting anybody to create code with pure language prompts pushed via an AI code editor. He mentioned that lets customers create new services and products, and in flip creates extra probabilities to generate income. Huang cautioned, although, that workers who do not use AI will likely be changed by those that can use the know-how.
Nvidia, which is essentially the most precious firm on the planet by market cap, produces AI chips that energy OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
ChatGPT was on observe to succeed in 700 million weekly lively customers final week.
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