Artificial intelligence (AI) may not only cost you your job, but it may also replace the CEOs of large companies, believes Sundar Pichai, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiaries Google.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Sundar Pichai was asked if artificial intelligence could pose a threat to all jobs, including his own job as CEO. Pichai replied with a soft smile.
“I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the simpler things, maybe for AI one day,” he said.
Recalling his statement many years ago, he said, “AI is the most profound technology humanity has ever worked on, and it has the potential for extraordinary benefits.”
Pichai said, “We’re going to have to work our way through the disruption of the company.”
“People will have to adapt”
Pichai believed the technology would eliminate some jobs but also “evolve and transform” others – consequences that mean “people will have to adapt”.
Google’s CEO said AI will eventually create new opportunities. “As an example, like YouTubers, anyone will be able to create content… Certain jobs will evolve and transfer and people will have to adapt…,” he said.
Urging the next generation to embrace the technology, Pichai explained that people across professions will need to learn it to keep their jobs. “People who embrace AI and adapt to it will do better,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a teacher or a doctor,” he said, assuring that all of these professions will be available, but that people will do well in each of these professions if they learn to use these tools.
“CEO Automation”
Pichai’s comments came as other tech CEOs predicted the arrival of a new era of CEO automation.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously said that AI will one day do his job better than him. He said: “I’ll just be excited the day it happens.”
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of the buy-and-pay-later company Klarna, also said in a post on X earlier this year that “AI is capable of doing all our jobs, including my own.”
The two CEOs joined another 49 percent of 500 CEOs surveyed by online education platform edX who believed “most” or “all” of their job functions should be automated by artificial intelligence, Fortune reported.
Meanwhile, there were other CEOs who felt differently.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, when asked last year if artificial intelligence could take his job, said “absolutely not.” He also said AI is a long way from replacing workers on a massive scale, adding that while the technology may be able to do some parts of the job up to 1,000 times better, “As we speak, AI has no way of doing what we do,” he added.
