--- title: "Sam Altman Warns That AI Is Gonna Destroy a Lot of People’s Jobs" description: "Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, sees the loss of jobs as a natural part of \"technological revolution\" every 100 to 150 years." date: "2023-10-19" modified: "2023-10-19" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-warns-ai-destroy-jobs" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "chatgpt" - "OpenAI" - "the digest" --- # Sam Altman Warns That AI Is Gonna Destroy a Lot of People’s Jobs ![Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, sees the loss of jobs as a natural part of "technological revolution" every 100 to 150 years.]() *\Image: Chip Somodevilla via Getty\* ## Rinse Cycle OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company makes that one chatbot your boss has probably considered replacing you with, warns that the advancement of AI means that *a lot* of people are going to lose their jobs. Spoiler: he doesn't sound like he's going to do anything about it. Viewing the shift through an historical lens, Altman thinks job loss is an inevitable casualty of any "technological revolution." Every 100 to 150 years, Altman said [at *The Wall Street Journal* Tech Live conference]() on Monday, half of people's jobs end up getting phased out. "I'm not afraid of that at all," he said, as quoted by the paper. "In fact, I think that's good. I think that's the way of progress, and we'll find new and better jobs." ## Long Jobs Telling people they're going to be out of a job in the name of progress is not an easy sell. Or, as Altman puts it, "that's not, uh, that's not cool." Which is an interesting thing for him to admit, since framing job loss as some sort of greater good is basically his whole narrative. In the past, he's never sounded that upset about AI replacing the "[median human]()," either. Still, he did reiterate that "we are really going to have to do something about this transition" — though what that "something" will actually be remains unclear. "It is not enough just to give people a universal basic income," Altman said. "People need to have agency, the ability to influence. We need to jointly be architects of the future." **It may** well be that being joint architects pretty much means "getting billions of people to use ChatGPT." ## Back and Forth If Altman really thinks we should do "something" about the transition to AI, he hasn't been all that keen on attempts so far to regulate it. Although in May he did [call on Congress to be tougher on the industry](), later that month he threatened [to pull OpenAI out of the European Union]() when it actually did so. These kinds of contradictions are fairly characteristic of Altman, who has rarely passed up the chance to both gloom and gloat about the tech's future. At times he's "[afraid]()" of what he's making and [loses sleep over it](). But he's also pretty confident that eventually, poor, "median" folks should be able to see an "[AI medical advisor]()" instead of an actual doctor. But he's consistently right about at least one thing: people are [already losing their jobs to AI](). **More on Sam Altman:** *[Sam Altman Says He Intends to Replace Normal People With AI]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()