OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday he no longer expects a global "jobs apocalypse" from artificial intelligence and that the technology has not yet displaced as many entry-level white-collar roles as he had feared.
Altman made the remarks in a virtual interview at a Commonwealth Bank of Australia conference, saying he and his executives were "roughly right" about the technical trajectory after OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022 but "pretty wrong" about the social and economic effects.
He said he was "delighted to be wrong" about the near-term impact on employment and that his earlier warnings reflected a genuine concern at the time.
Altman said a practical lesson for him has been the persistence of a "human part" in many jobs, noting he tried using AI to reply to Slack and email messages but reverted to answering some himself because people care about those interactions.
He did not cite job numbers on Tuesday, though he has previously warned of potential industry-wide cuts, and a range of global firms including HSBC, Amazon, Standard Chartered and CBA have said some roles are being replaced by AI.
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Reuters recently reported OpenAI is preparing to confidentially file for a U.S. initial public offering in the coming weeks, which earlier reporting said could aim for a $1 trillion valuation and raise at least $60 billion.
"I don't think we're going to have the kind of jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate or talk about," Altman said.
