Ford CEO Jim Farley has joined a growing number of executives warning that artificial intelligence (AI) may threaten millions of jobs.
“AI is going to replace literally half of all white collar workers,” Mr Farley said, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival on June 27th.
“I believe that AI and new technology have an asymmetric impact on our economy. That means a lot of things are helped a lot, and a lot of things are hurt,” said Mr Farley.
“And when you look at these openings in our economy, it is very clear that a lot of technology we’ve seen has left a lot of people behind.
“AI will leave a lot of white collar people behind. And we have to acknowledge that these new technologies are great, they’ll make a lot of people’s lives better, even people in the essential economy, but what are we going to do as a society for the people that it leaves behind, who are valuable humans?
“We have to have a plan for sustainment. And we don’t have that plan today.”
Farley is only one of the many public figures warning about the potential disruptions that AI could have on the global workforce. Dario Amodei, CEO of AI lab Anthropic, said that AI tech could boost unemployment in the US as high as 20% by 2030.
“AI is starting to get better than humans at almost all intellectual tasks, and we’re going to collectively, as a society, grapple with it,” Amodei told CNN.
Similarly, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), predicted that AI would impact 60% of jobs in advanced economies and 40% worldwide.
LinkedIn’s Chief Economic Opportunity Officer, Aneesh Raman, also warned that millions of students graduating this year will face a significant threat from AI, comparing the situation to the decline of the manufacturing sector in the 1980s.
However, not everyone is as pessimistic. For instance, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said that he isn’t too worried about an AI “jobpocalypse” and stressed that old jobs will simply be replaced with “even better” ones.
On top of that, according to a talent survey from the Linux Foundation, AI is credited for an increase in overall headcount at the respondents’ organizations, with 33% noticing that there are now more jobs and only 12% blaming AI for a reduced headcount.
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