Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai attempted to push back against concerns that AI could take millions of human jobs but acknowledged that these fears are legitimate – even though thinking too far ahead is “pointless,” he added.
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Sundar Pichai explained that AI eliminates tedious tasks and makes engineers more productive and able to focus on more impactful tasks.
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Alphabet, Google’s parent company, laid off 12,000 workers in 2023 and another 1,000 last year.
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Dario Amodei, CEO of AI lab Anthropic, said that the tech could eliminate half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within the next five years.
In a Bloomberg interview Wednesday, Pichai stressed Alphabet’s commitment to growth amidst concerns that AI could eventually wipe out about half of the 180,000 jobs currently created by the company.
“I expect we will grow from our current engineering phase even into next year, because it allows us to do more,” said Pichai, adding that AI eliminates tedious tasks and makes engineers more productive and able to focus on more impactful tasks.
According to the Alphabet CEO, AI should be imagined as “an accelerator” that drives new product development and creates demand for even more employees.
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI research arm DeepMind and a Nobel Prize winner, also told CNN on Wednesday he wasn’t too worried about an AI “jobpocalypse” – allegedly, he’s more concerned about the new tech falling into the wrong hands.
Even though Hassabis admitted that societies will have to adapt, he repeated the mantra heard so often in the AI industry: “Usually what happens is new, even better jobs arrive to take the place of some of the jobs that get replaced.”
As a reminder, though, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, laid off 12,000 workers in 2023 and another 1,000 last year. In April, Google also fired hundreds of employees in its platforms and devices unit.
Reports of yet more job cuts at major tech companies are now almost a daily occurrence, and comments by other top executives aren’t helpful, either.
In early May, Micha Kaufman, CEO of the freelancer platform Fiverr, said in an internal memo that those who fail to adapt to a new AI-based reality are doomed and candidly warned: “AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job too.”
In April, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he expects AI to be writing half the company’s code by 2026, and just last week, Dario Amodei, CEO of AI lab Anthropic, said that the tech could eliminate half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within the next five years.
“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, adding that AI tech could boost unemployment in the US as high as 20% by 2030.
Pichai, for what it’s worth, acknowledged that fears about job displacement are legitimate: “I think it’s important to voice those concerns and debate them.”
But he also said trying to think too far ahead is “pointless” – even though planning for the future is always a good idea, isn’t it?
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