‘A bit scared’: OpenAI CEO says ChatGPT may wipe out current jobs

Even though the AI-powered ChatGPT may have bowled over tech enthusiasts across the world with its human-like responses to complex solutions, the CEO of OpenAI, the company that spawned this application, has raised some serious concerns about its dangerous capabilities and how it might impact the livelihood of millions of people.    

During an interview with ABC News, CEO Sam Altman admitted that they are “a little bit scared” of their creation, saying that it may wipe out a lot of current jobs.

“We’ve got to be careful here… I think people should be happy that we are a little bit scared of this,” the 37-year-old tech entrepreneur said on Friday.

When asked to explain why he was “scared”, Altman replied that if he wasn’t “scared” then “you should either not trust me or be very unhappy that I’m in this job.” 

 “It is going to eliminate a lot of current jobs, that’s true. We can make much better ones. The reason to develop AI at all, in terms of impact on our lives and improving our lives and upside, this will be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed,” he said.

Speaking about the impacts of AI-powered chatbots on education, Altman said that it would “increase laziness among students”.

“Education is going to have to change. But it’s happened many other times with technology. When we got the calculator, the way we taught math and what we tested students on totally changed,” he added.

He remained adamant that ChatGPT would be a net boon for society.

“The promise of this technology, one of the ones that I’m most excited about is the ability to provide individual learning — great individual learning for each student.”

ChatGPT is an AI language model, backed by Microsoft. The GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer.

Released in November, the AI-bot quickly emerged to be one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history. The app hit 100 million monthly active users in just a few months. In comparison, TikTok took nine months to reach that many users and Instagram took nearly three years, according to a UBS study.

(With inputs from agencies)

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