New Delhi, May 26 (IANS). OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday that there is no danger of artificial intelligence (AI) eliminating jobs altogether. Also said that the earlier estimate of a large number of white collar jobs being lost due to AI had been exaggerated.
Speaking at a conference hosted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney, Altman said he had initially expected a very large number of entry-level white-collar jobs to be eliminated by AI after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. But its impact on employment has so far been less severe than anticipated.
“I’m pleased to learn that my guess was wrong,” Altman said during a conversation with CBA Chief Executive Matt Comyn.
He added, “I thought the impact of the loss of entry-level white-collar jobs would be greater than it has been so far.”
Altman said that OpenAI had guessed “almost right” about the pace of technological progress in AI, but proved “quite wrong” about the social and economic consequences. According to him, the initial fears about job losses were due to the real threat at the time.
His comments come at a time when several global companies, including HSBC, Amazon, Standard Chartered and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, have acknowledged that some positions in their organizations are being replaced or redesigned by AI-based tools and automation.
However, Altman said he is increasingly realizing that human interaction remains an essential part of many jobs and cannot be easily imitated by machines.
He shared a personal example of experimenting with AI-generated replies to Slack and email messages, after which he eventually started replying himself.
–IANS
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