No jobs apocalypse: Sam Altman says AI may not trigger the mass unemployment many feared

For years, Silicon Valley has warned the world that artificial intelligence could replace millions of office workers, automate white-collar professions and reshape employment faster than societies could adapt. But now, one of AI’s most influential figures says the feared “jobs apocalypse” may not arrive in the way many expected.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman admitted on Tuesday that he had been wrong about how quickly AI would begin eliminating large numbers of white-collar jobs. Speaking virtually at a Commonwealth Bank of Australia conference in Sydney, Altman said the technology’s social impact had unfolded very differently from what he and others initially predicted when ChatGPT exploded into public use in 2022.

And surprisingly, one of the reasons behind his shift in thinking came from something as mundane as replying to emails.

This comes after several tech companies, including Meta, Amazon, Block, and more have laid of thousands of employees. Just last week, Meta fired around 8,000 employees, calling it restructuring. Oracle has also reduced its global workforce to invest in AI. So, what does Altman mean that AI job fear is not as much as he thought?

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Sam Altman says AI job fears may have been overstated

Altman told Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn that OpenAI had largely been accurate in forecasting how rapidly AI capabilities would improve. What the company failed to anticipate properly, he suggested, was how humans would continue valuing human interaction even as AI tools became more advanced.

“I’m delighted to be wrong about this,” Altman said. “I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened.”

The OpenAI boss admitted that his earlier concerns about widespread job losses may have fuelled unnecessary fear around artificial intelligence.

“People are like ‘oh you could have saved the world a lot of fear mongering and a lot of doom and gloom’,” he said. “But at the time I was like ‘I see this is a real risk we should probably talk about it’.”

Altman explained that his perspective changed after experimenting with AI systems in his own workflow. At one point, he allowed AI to respond to Slack and email messages on his behalf, clearly labelling replies as generated by “Sam’s AI”.

The experience, however, made him realise how much people still value authentic human interaction.

“We really do care about people,” Altman said. “We really do care about our interactions with people and this thing, which is a huge amount of my time, is not something that I can imagine myself outsourcing to an AI anytime soon.”

That insight, he said, reshaped his understanding of how AI may influence employment. While automation will certainly affect some tasks and industries, Altman now believes many jobs contain deeply human elements that technology cannot easily replace.

“It really, in both positive and negative ways, updated me to thinking that the jobs picture is likely to be very different than we thought,” he said.

Still, the debate remains far from settled. Several major global firms including HSBC, Amazon, Standard Chartered and Commonwealth Bank itself have already acknowledged replacing some roles or functions with AI-driven systems.

Meanwhile, OpenAI is reportedly preparing to confidentially file for a US initial public offering in the coming weeks. Reuters previously reported the company could eventually target a valuation approaching $1 trillion.

Pope Leo warns world not to surrender to AI risks

Altman’s remarks arrived just one day after Pope Leo issued one of the strongest warnings yet from a global religious leader about the unchecked growth of artificial intelligence.

In his first major encyclical released on Monday, the Pope urged governments and technology firms to slow down AI development and place stronger safeguards around the technology’s influence on society.

The document warned that AI systems could spread misinformation, intensify global conflict and deepen inequality if left unchecked. Pope Leo also argued that control over AI data should not remain concentrated within private companies alone.

The Pope called on policymakers to protect workers, defend children from harmful AI systems and reduce aggressive competition between technology firms racing to dominate the sector.

“A subtle temptation may emerge,” Leo wrote, “namely the thought that the problems are too big and we are too small.”

“Certainly, not everyone has the same power to make a difference,” he added. “Yet, no one is without responsibility.”

Together, the remarks from Altman and Pope Leo highlight the growing divide shaping the global AI debate: between fears of technological disruption and the belief that human society may prove more resilient than expected.