Nobel Prize winner and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton reiterated his concerns regarding artificial intelligence's impact on employment and the responsibilities of pioneering companies.
TL;DR
- Geoffrey Hinton, "godfather of AI," warns big companies profit from AI by replacing human jobs.
- Major AI hyperscalers like Microsoft and Alphabet are increasing capital spending significantly.
- Hinton believes AI investments require replacing human labor to generate substantial profits.
- AI's impact on jobs is uncertain, but evidence suggests reduced entry-level prospects.
During an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Wall Street Week held Friday, he stated that the most straightforward method to profit from AI investments, apart from levying charges for chatbot usage, involves substituting human employees with more economical alternatives.
Hinton, a Nobel laureate also known as “godfather of AI,”, expressed that while certain economists highlight how past disruptive technologies have both generated and eliminated employment, he's uncertain if AI will follow a similar pattern.
“I think the big companies are betting on it causing massive job replacement by AI, because that’s where the big money is going to be,” he warned.
Next fiscal year, only four prominent AI hyperscalers—Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon—are projected to increase their capital spending from $360 billion this year to $420 billion, according to according to Bloomberg.
In recent weeks, OpenAI alone has revealed infrastructure agreements totaling $1 trillion with companies integral to the AI ecosystem, such as Nvidia, Broadcom, and Oracle.
When asked if such investments can pay off without destroying jobs, Hinton replied, “I believe that it can’t. I believe that to make money you’re going to have to replace human labor.”
The remarks echo what he said in September, when he told the Financial Times that AI will “create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits,” attributing it to the capitalist system.
Indeed, growing evidence suggests AI is reducing job prospects, particularly in the entry level, and a review of job postings after OpenAI's ChatGPT release indicates they plummeted roughly 30%.
And this past week, Amazon announced 14,000 layoffs, largely in middle management. While CEO Andy Jassy said the decision was the result of “culture” and not AI, a memo he sent in June predicted a smaller corporate workforce “as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
While acknowledging potential drawbacks for employees, Hinton also perceives advantages stemming from AI. When queried about whether he'd reverse time to halt AI's advancement, he hesitated before stating his uncertainty.
“It’s not like nuclear weapons, which are only good for bad things,” he explained. “It’s a difficult decision, because it can do tremendous good in health care and education. It’ll do tremendous good, and in fact if you think about it increasing productivity in many, many industries, that should be good.”
The problem ultimately is not owing to AI itself, but “on how we organize society,” Hinton added.