Jeff Bezos says AI will cause “labor scarcity,” not job loss

Jeff Bezos hears those widespread fears about AI causing job loss—and he thinks those doomers are looking at the future all wrong. “I know there’s a lot of concern in general about AI and job loss,” Bezos said in a recent CNBC interview. “I have a very different view. I think what’s actually going to happen is we’re going to have labor scarcity as a result. People are going to have to work hard.” “I know why people are pessimistic. They’re pessimistic because a bunch of smart people are telling them to be pessimistic, but those people are wrong,” Bezos added. “When you have productivity—and this could be very significant productivity in the economy—that is going to raise the standard of living.” Bezos has been staunch in his belief that AI will result in the opposite of job loss, instead resulting in a shortage of human labor. In May, he said that AI pessimists were “dead wrong,” adding that the tech would “elevate” young workers and allow people to get work done at “a higher level.” With the productivity gains and expanded economy that will result from AI innovation, Bezos believes there will be more demand for human work than there currently is supply. AI startup Prometheus cofounder and co-CEO Vik Bajaj agreed with Bezos’ sentiment during the interview. “Companies occasionally create jobs, but what really creates jobs is invention,” Bajaj said. “Inventions are based on dreams, but invention means that you actually make the dream a reality.” Bezos’ and Bajaj’s Prometheus officially launched in November with 6.2 billion in funding. TechCrunch recently reported that the company raised an additional 12 billion at a 41 billion valuation in a funding round led by Bezos, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, DST Global and Arch Venture Partners. The company is building AI tools that speed up engineering work, or what it calls an “artificial general engineer.” “We will have more engineers; we will have more jobs in engineering and manufacturing as a result of inventing more,” Bajaj added. Bezos’ theory might be difficult to convince others of, especially considering Amazon—where he is the largest individual shareholder and executive chairman—has cut thousands of roles as it embraces AI and aims to reduce middle management layers. In October, the company laid off 14,000 corporate workers and later cut another 16,000 roles in January under CEO Andy Jassy. CEOs seem to be split on their stances on AI job loss. OpenAI’s Sam Altman previously warned that AI would make jobs disappear, but he recently said he was wrong about his timeline and prediction. Last year, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei said that AI could wipe out 50 of entry-level white-collar jobs. Others, like Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, have brushed aside AI as a “lazy” excuse for layoffs. Amid these conflicting views, a new Reuters/Ipsos survey found that 53 of its 4,531 respondents were worried that they or someone in their household would lose a job due to AI. The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that AI is, in fact, changing work. Whether it’s changing for the best is still up for debate.