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Why do CEOs of big AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic often publicly acknowledge that AI is likely to result in significant job loss? Most AI company CEOs now concede that widespread job loss from AI is coming, while differing somewhat on the timeline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Such statements might seem likely to alienate people from the technology, as well as from the executives and companies bringing it into the world. In fact, a recent Quinnipiac University poll<\/a> found that a majority of Americans (55%) now believe AI will cause more harm than good.<\/p>\n So when people like Altman and Amodei sit before large audiences and discuss how quickly AI could displace human workers, who are they really talking to?<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be investors, because if all jobs are going to be taken over by AI, you better own a piece of that AI, right?\u201d says Ben Goertzel, the scientist who coined the term \u201cAGI\u201d (that\u2019s artificial general intelligence) and coauthored the 2005 book Artificial General Intelligence<\/a><\/em> with DeepMind cofounder Shane Legg. Goertzel believes Amodei and Altman genuinely believe what they are saying about job losses. But investors hear the same words as opportunity, not warning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When AI leaders talk about the large-scale impact of their products, they are also reinforcing a crucial narrative: that generative AI models will soon take over many corporate work tasks, delivering unprecedented productivity and efficiency. That narrative does more than keep investment dollars flowing into model training and data center construction. Companies representing roughly a third of U.S. stock market value are making major bets on it, so any erosion of confidence could have sweeping economic consequences.<\/p>\n But this is largely a narrative shared within boardrooms and among the AI community on X. The public hears it secondhand, and often hears something very different. Many worry about when waves of job losses will arrive, and how AI could be used for harmful purposes such as mass surveillance, disinformation, and cybercrime.<\/p>\n AI companies are not speaking directly to the public about these concerns. There is no nationally televised town hall where executives explain how they plan to keep increasingly powerful AI systems aligned with human needs and values, or how they intend to prevent those systems from being weaponized by bad actors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n