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Big Quote: While we’ve heard CEOs warn us that generative AI is a threat to jobs, these predictions from Sam Altman are even more alarming. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, said that the technology may eliminate entire job categories. Customer support roles are the most at-risk. Altman, speaking at the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC, addressed one of the hotly debated topics around generative AI – its impact on jobs. Altman stated that he believes that AI agents will replace “no one knows what happens next,” while he is not sure if “Some areas, again, I think just like totally, totally gone,” will be replaced by AI agents. Altman highlighted the customer support roles as being most at risk. Altman stated that AI agents have already transformed the customer service industry and are making jobs obsolete. He told Michelle Bowman of the Federal Reserve Vice-Chair for Supervision that “it’s like a super-smart, capable person. There’s no phone tree, there’s no transfers. It can do everything that any customer support agent at that company could do. It does not make mistakes. It’s very quick. You call once, the thing just happens. It’s done.”
Altman may be confident that AI can replace humans in customer service, but that there’s still a long way to travel. Klarna’s pay later/shopping service, which had been using AI chatbots for two-thirds its customer service conversations, has recently begun hiring humans. Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, said that chatbots are cheaper than hiring real people but they offer a “lower quality” outcome. He wants to give customers the option of speaking to a real person.
AI is not only a threat to customer service workers. Altman said that AI can perform jobs better than top professionals like doctors. The CEO admitted, however, he wouldn’t want to remove humans from the equation when it comes healthcare. He said. Altman, despite his role as the head of OpenAI admitted that he is still concerned about AI’s ability to harm humanity. He says that one scenario keeps him up at night is the possibility of a hostile nation using technology to attack the US Financial System. He warned that AI’s ability clone voice with such high accuracy could lead to more fraud and identity theft. This is especially true as some financial institutions accept voices as authentication. Dario Amodei is another CEO, who believes AI will eliminate certain job roles. He predicted that half of the entry-level white collar jobs will disappear within five years. These warnings were echoed by Andy Jassy of Amazon, Jim Farley of Ford, Tobi Lutke of Spotify, Stephane Bancel at Moderna, and many other CEOs. But it seems that cutting costs and pleasing investors are more important than making thousands of people jobless.
