CEOs and experts agree that AI is creating a new world of work, but many are starkly divided on what itโll look like. As AI agents and robots enter the picture,ย the pioneering computer scientist dubbed the Godfather of AI, Geoffery Hinton, has predicted one industry will be safe from the potential jobs armageddon: healthcare.
โTheyโre much more elastic,โ Hinton explained yesterday on the Diary of a CEO YouTube series.
โIf you could make doctors five times as efficient, we could all have five times as much health care for the same price,โ he continued. โThereโs almost no limit to how much health care people can absorbโ[patients] always want more health care if thereโs no cost to it.โ
The Nobel Prizeโwinning scientist is one of many experts who anticipate that health care will be buoyed in this digital transformationโbut many others wonโt be so lucky.
Hinton believes that jobs that perform mundane tasks will be taken over by AI, as roles like receptionists and customer service representatives are already vulnerable. That, Hinton predicted, will wipe out a high number of roles right off the bat: โYouโd have to be very skilled to have a job that it couldnโt just do.โ
Most jobs will be replaced by tech, and only the โskilledโ will stay employedย
Tech leaders with rosy lenses like Jensen Huang contend that humans wonโt be replaced by AI, but rather their AI-enabled coworkers will take their jobs. But the Godfather of AI thinks thatโs too optimistic.ย
โThere are jobs where you can make a person with an AI assistant much more efficient, and you wonโt lead to less people, because youโll just have much more of that being done,โ Hinton said. โBut most jobs are not like that.โ
He concluded that AI will likely lead to companies needing far fewer workers and that the new technologyโs impact canโt be compared to previous technological advances that created an explosion of new jobs.
โThis is a very different kind of technology. If it can do all mundane human intellectual labor, then what new jobs is it going to create?โ Hinton said. โYouโd have to be very skilled to have a job that it couldnโt just do.โ
It isnโt just leading scientists, CEOs, and workers ringing the alarm bellsโeven major consulting firms and banks are projecting a bleak labor market. McKinsey predicted that by 2030, 30% of current U.S. jobs could be automated; Goldman Sachs projected that up to 50% of jobs could be fully automated by 2045, driven by generative AI and robotics.
Other CEOs agree that health care jobs are safe from AI disruption
Itโs been estimated by leaders like Anthropicโs CEO that nearly half of entry-level white collar jobs are on the chopping block thanks to AIโand Klarnaโs CEO admitted that โa lot of the jobs are going to be threatened.โ But many health care roles will be safe and sound.ย
Health care is a key industry expected to thrive amid the U.S.โs digital workplace disruption, according to a 2024 report from McKinsey. AI still canโt perform a majority of tasks that health care workers canโlike sterilizing surgical equipment, or administering at-home aid.ย
Plus, thereโs something much more comforting about a human handling your medical care over a cold, metal robot. Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Googleโs AI research lab DeepMind, also echoed Hintonโs prediction that health care workers will be optimizedโbut not fully replacedโby AI. The tech executive believes the tools will help us cure disease, and create โsuperhumanโ productivity. But people will still be at the heart of medical care.ย
โThereโs a lot of things that we wonโt want to do with a machine,โ Hassabis told Wired in a recent interview
Written by Emma Burleigh for Fortune as โThe โGodfather of AIโ says this sector will be safe from being replaced by techโbut even then, only the โvery skilledโ will hold down a jobโ and republished with permission.
