OpenAI's Altman says AI unlikely to lead to 'jobs apocalypse'

Sam Altman said on Tuesday in Sydney that the rapid development and adoption of AI would not lead to a global "jobs apocalypse" and that the technology had not claimed as many white-collar jobs as he had feared. Speaking virtually at a Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) conference, Altman said he and his executives had been "roughly right" on the technological predictions made by OpenAI when it launched ChatGPT in 2022, but they were "pretty wrong" on the social and economic implications. He told CBA Chief Executive Matt Comyn in an interview, "I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened."

Altman said he had realized that even though AI was taking on an increasingly active role in many industries and jobs, there was still a 'human part' of employment that could not be replaced. He said he had been using AI to respond to Slack and email messages but had reverted to answering some himself. A growing number of global companies, including HSBC, Amazon, Standard Chartered and CBA have announced that some jobs within their companies are being replaced by AI.

OpenAI is preparing to confidentially file for a U.S. initial public offering in the coming weeks, Reuters reported last week, citing a source familiar with the matter. The company could be aiming for a $1 trillion valuation and raising at least $60 billion, Reuters reported in October.