As Americans grow increasingly worried that AI will wipe out millions of jobs and create a permanent new underclass, tech billionaires are rushing to reassure us not to worry – the subtext being: please don’t bring out the anti-AI pitchforks.
Even Elon Musk, who recently merged SpaceX with his AI company, has joined the effort, essentially telling people “don’t worry, be happy” about AI. Musk wrote last month that “Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government” would save everyone thrown out of work by AI.
Musk says that AI will create such gigantic productivity gains and such vast economic abundance that there will be no inflation and no need to “worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years”. “Saving for retirement will be irrelevant,” he added.
As part of this reassurance chorus, Sam Altman’s OpenAI issued a report last month that said: “The promise of superintelligence is extraordinary … [AI] will speed up scientific and medical breakthroughs, significantly increase productivity, lower costs for families by making essential goods cheaper, and open the way for entirely new forms of work, creativity, and entrepreneurship.”
Peter Thiel, the billionaire cofounder of Palantir, has also sought to minimize worries about AI, saying, “It’s more than a nothing-burger, and it’s less than the total transformation of our society.” Thiel added that if we don’t develop AI, “the alternative is just total stagnation.”
With Americans battling to block new data centers across the US, Musk and other tech billionaires are seeking to lull the masses into believing that they shouldn’t fear AI and certainly shouldn’t fight against it. But as Musk and other billionaires maneuver to make tens of billions of dollars from AI, everyone should be doubly dubious about their assurances.
People should be worried considering that Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s CEO, said AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in one to five years and lift the unemployment rate to 20%. The CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, warned that most white-collar work “will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.”
As AI is rolled out across various industries, it is likely to have another important impact on workers, beyond any layoffs – AI will be used to control and surveil workers and pressure them to increase their productivity.
A Fox News poll found that nearly one-third of Americans fear that AI will eliminate their job over the next five years. But the Trump administration seems singularly unconcerned. Donald Trump has enthusiastically embraced AI and sought to speed the way for AI companies to advance and build data centers. Kevin Hassett, a top Trump economic adviser, has downplayed job concerns, saying AI isn’t costing anyone their jobs even as tech layoffs mount.
Young people entering the job market should be especially worried. They shouldn’t be comforted…
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