The debate over whether AI will create or take over jobs is heating up. Here's what AI leaders are saying.

Dario Amodei

AI may eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. That was the stark warning from Dario Amodei, the CEO of AI startup Anthropic. "We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming. I don't think this is on people's radar," Amodei told Axios in an interview published in May.

He said he wanted to share his concerns to get the government and other AI companies to prepare the country for what's to come, adding that unemployment could spike to between 10% and 20% in the next five years.

He said that entry-level jobs are especially at risk, adding that AI companies and the government need to stop "sugarcoating" the risks of mass job elimination in fields including technology, finance, law, and consulting.

Jensen Huang

Huang, the CEO of chipmaker Nvidia, was withering when asked about Amodei's comments. "I pretty much disagree with almost everything he says," Huang said. Amodei "thinks AI is so scary," but only Anthropic "should do it," he continued. An Anthropic spokesperson told BI that Amodei had never made that claim.

"Do I think AI will change jobs? It will change everyone's — it's changed mine," Huang told reporters on the sidelines of Vivatech in Paris in June. He also said that some roles would disappear, but said that AI could also unlock creative opportunities.

Yann LeCun

Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, wrote a short LinkedIn post just after Huang dismissed Amodei, saying, "I agree with Jensen and, like him, pretty much disagree with everything Dario says."

LeCun has previously taken a more optimistic stance on AI's impact on jobs. Speaking at Nvidia's GTC conference in March, LeCun said that AI could replace people but challenged whether humans would allow that to happen.

"I mean basically our relationship with future AI systems, including superintelligence, is that we're going to be their boss," he said.

Demis Hassabis

Demis Hassabis, the cofounder of Google DeepMind, said in June that AI would create "very valuable jobs" and "supercharge sort of technically savvy people who are at the forefront of using these technologies." He told London Tech Week attendees that humans were "infinitely adaptable."

He said he'd still recommend young people study STEM subjects, saying it was "still important to understand fundamentals" in areas including mathematics, physics, and computer science to understand "how these systems are put together."

Geoffrey Hinton

You would have to be "very skilled" to have an AI-proof job, Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called "Godfather of AI," has said.

"For mundane intellectual labor, AI is just going to replace everybody," Hinton told the "Diary of a CEO" podcast in June. He flagged paralegals as at risk, and said he'd be "terrified" if he worked in a call center.

Hinton said that, eventually, the technology would "get to be better than us at everything," but said some fields were safer, and that it would be, "a long time before it's as good at physical manipulation.

"So a good bet would be to be a plumber," he added.

Sam Altman

"AI is for sure going to change a lot of jobs" and "totally take some jobs away, create a bunch of new ones," Altman said during a May episode of "The Circuit" podcast.

The OpenAI CEO said that although people might be aware that AI can be better at some tasks, like programming or customer support, the world "is not ready for" humanoid robots.

"I don't think the world has really had the humanoid robots moment yet," he said, describing a scenario where people could encounter "like seven robots that walk past you" on the street.

"It's gonna feel very sci-fi. And I don't think that's very far away from like a visceral 'oh man, this is gonna do a lot of things that people used to do,'" he added.

Speaking at the Snowflake Summit in June, Altman said AI agents are already acting like junior employees.

Jim Farley

Like Amodei, Ford CEO Jim Farley sees major changes coming.

"Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the US," Farley said during an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Farley said he's concerned that too much of the American education system is focused on four-year degrees instead of trades.

Brad Lightcap

Like Altman, OpenAI's COO Brad Lightcap doesn't see the sky falling.

"We have no evidence of this," Lightcap said during the "Hard Fork" podcast taping. "And Dario is a scientist. And I would hope he takes an evidence-based approach to these types of things."

Lightcap said that every technology changes the job market.

"I think every time you get a platform shift, you get a change in the job market," he said." I mean, in 1900, 40 percent of people worked in agriculture. It's 2 percent today. Microsoft Excel has probably been the greatest job displacer of the 20th century."

Andy Jassy

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that AI is already changing workflows. He said it will soon lead to a reduction in some jobs.

"As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done," Jassy said in a memo posted to the Amazon website. "We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs."

Aravind Srinivas

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said he sees a middle ground between Amodei's prediction of near-immediate doom and overly rosy projections of how soon AI will create new jobs.

"More entrepreneurs need to emerge to create new jobs, because every company is going to need fewer people," Srinivas told Matthew Berman during a recent interview. "Either the other people who lose jobs end up starting companies themselves and make use of AIs, or they end up learning AIs and end up contributing to new companies that need to hire some people."

Srinivas said there will be a "temporary phase" of job displacement. He said there's no need "to sugarcoat" what will happen.

"During that phase, you're going to see some people struggling," he said.