The long-term impact of artificial intelligence is one of the hottest debates in Silicon Valley. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang predicts that every job will transform and could lead to a four-day work week. Other tech giants go further: Bill Gates said humans may soon no longer be needed for “most things”, while Elon Musk believes that “in less than 20 years” most people won’t need to work at all.
Geoffrey Hinton, a British computer scientist known as the “Godfather of Artificial Intelligence,” said that although these predictions may sound extreme, they are not only plausible, but also very possible. He warned the shift could trigger a sweeping economic restructuring that would leave millions of workers behind.
“It’s very likely that AI will lead to mass unemployment for a lot of people,” Hinton said in a recent discussion with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at Georgetown University.
“If you ask where these guys are going to get the roughly trillions of dollars that they’re investing in data centers and chips … one of the major sources of funding is going to be selling artificial intelligence to people, which will make it much cheaper for workers to do their jobs. So these guys are really betting that artificial intelligence is going to replace a lot of workers.”
Hinton has become increasingly outspoken about what he believes are the misplaced priorities of big tech companies. He recently told the industry wealthdriven more by short-term profits than scientific progress — fueling efforts to replace human workers with cheaper artificial intelligence systems.
His warning comes as the economics of artificial intelligence face new scrutiny. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is not expected to become profitable until at least 2030 and may need more than $207 billion to support its growth, according to HSBC estimates.
Behind the fog of war lies the future of artificial intelligence
Hinton’s journey from AI insider to outspoken critic highlights the high stakes of the technology he helped create. He has become one of the most prominent skeptics after quitting his job at Google in 2023 to speak more freely about the risks of artificial intelligence. Last year, his pioneering work in machine learning won him a Nobel Prize.
He also acknowledged that artificial intelligence will create new jobs, as many tech leaders predict. But he added that he did not expect the number of new positions to come close to the number eliminated. Even so, he warned that all forecasts – including his own – should be treated with serious skepticism.
“Trying to predict its future is going to be very difficult,” he told Sanders. “It’s a bit like driving in fog. You can see clearly at 100 yards, and you can’t see anything at 200 yards. Well, we can see clearly in a year or two, but in 10 years, we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
What is clear, however, is that artificial intelligence is not going away, and experts say workers who adapt and use the technology to enhance their skills will be best positioned to cope with the coming upheaval.
Bernie Sanders warns 100 million jobs are at risk
Sanders tried to quantify the risk. In a report released in October, based in part on estimates from ChatGPT, he warned that automation could displace nearly 100 million U.S. jobs. Workers in fast food, customer service and manual labor face some of the highest risks, but white-collar jobs in accounting, software development and nursing are also likely to see significant layoffs.
“This is not just about the economy,” Sanders wrote in an op-ed. fox news. “Work, whether as a janitor or a brain surgeon, is an integral part of being human. The vast majority of people want to be productive members of society and contribute to their communities. What happens when this important aspect of human existence disappears from our lives?”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sounded a similar alarm, warning that the disruption could hit young people hardest first, potentially leading to unemployment rates as high as 25% among recent college graduates in the next two to three years.
“Let’s look at the fact that we’ve never done anything on social media,” Warner told CNBC. “If we react the same way to AI and don’t put guardrails in place, I think we’ll regret that day.”
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com