Source: The Wall Street Journal
Author: Katherine Bindley
Compiled and organized by BitpushNews
As public perception of artificial intelligence turns negative, warnings about large-scale layoffs are decreasing.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the industry underestimates our ability to stay human-centered in everything we do.
A year ago, many business leaders conveyed the message that artificial intelligence would completely destroy jobs. But over the past month or so, tech company CEOs have begun adopting a more optimistic tone.
In late May this year, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who has long predicted that artificial intelligence would cause dramatic shifts in the labor market, said at a conference: “We were generally correct in our technological predictions, but completely wrong about the social and economic impacts.”
Shortly after, he told CNBC: “Our industry underestimates our ability to remain human-centered in everything we do.”
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, warned in May 2025 that artificial intelligence could eliminate half of startup roles. A year later, he emphasized a more positive approach to AI adoption by companies: “They can do the same things with fewer resources, leading to outcomes like layoffs; or they can do more with the same resources. But that requires creativity.”
In an article he published in June, the executive wrote that he issued the warning about job losses to give policymakers and the private sector the best chance to adapt—he did not intend to be a “doomsayer.” (He also wrote that the possibility of “persistent unemployment” still exists.)
Is this more optimistic outlook aimed at winning back customers and the public who are dissatisfied with artificial intelligence’s promise to “disrupt the world”?
Or do people now have a better understanding of the role of artificial intelligence in the workplace?
Some comments on the job-creation potential of artificial intelligence, at a time when companies are cutting jobs to raise more funds for AI spending.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, recently told Complex that if companies focus on increasing employee productivity faster than automation, “there should theoretically be more jobs in the future, not fewer.” This month, the company began laying off 8,000 employees and streamlining its teams.
In February this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy spoke about the job-creating potential of artificial intelligence during an interview with CNBC. A year earlier, he had announced that the company would reduce its workforce over the coming years due to artificial intelligence. Amazon stated that the subsequent layoff of 16,000 employees was unrelated to the application of AI, but rather part of ongoing efforts to reduce organizational layers and revitalize company culture.
Overall, the narrative has shifted from a dystopian scenario of job losses due to artificial intelligence to a future where workers retain their jobs and experience productivity gains.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei previously issued warnings about job displacement caused by artificial intelligence, but in a recent article, he stated that he did not intend to act as a "doomsayer."
This shift in sentiment is not limited to tech leaders: An EY-Parthenon survey found that the percentage of CEOs who believe AI investments will lead to significant layoffs dropped from about 46% in January 2025 to 20% this May.
“They may have noticed that the labor market has not changed as rapidly as they expected (i.e., collapsed),” said David Autor, Professor of Economics at MIT. “They may have realized that claiming your groundbreaking new product will destroy the economy is simply poor business strategy.”
A recent study by fintech company Ramp and workforce intelligence company Revelio Labs found that companies with the highest investments in artificial intelligence experienced employment growth rates approximately 10% higher than similar companies that have not adopted AI.
“The companies I know that are using AI the most are also the ones hiring the most,” Altman said in an interview with CNBC. Some tech leaders say AI is even creating demand for certain jobs, and many more roles that don’t exist yet will emerge in the future.
Many prominent economists disagree on the long-term impact of artificial intelligence on employment.
Ford CEO Jim Farley last year said that artificial intelligence would replace “literally half of white-collar workers in the U.S.,” yet the company recently hired hundreds of engineers, attributing the move to concerns about the quality of automated work. (These job postings were previously reported by Bloomberg.)
“Having engineers with deep technical expertise harness the power of artificial intelligence is a powerful combination driving Ford’s quality improvements,” said a Ford spokesperson.
Under the leadership of CEO Jim Farley, Ford has recently hired hundreds of engineers to address concerns regarding work automation.
Meanwhile, negative public sentiment toward artificial intelligence is mounting. According to a recent poll by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, about 30% of Democrats believe the U.S. should accelerate AI innovation as quickly as possible, compared to approximately 50% of Republicans and 77% of tech founders.
“The tone of the conversation has changed,” says Maurice Schweitzer, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who researches leadership and decision-making. “There was a lot of hype early on.”
He said that there is a political component in what they are trying to do between building data centers and government regulatory efforts targeting artificial intelligence.
In addition, there are concerns about the real-world performance of artificial intelligence in enterprises. Companies in technology and other fields are learning how long it takes to implement new AI tools and are working to better understand their effectiveness in handling tasks and workflows.
According to a survey by the technology and management consulting firm Emergn of corporate executives, businesses struggle to determine which AI investments are successful. About 20% of U.S. leaders said the deployment reports they received were more optimistic than reality, with some reports “beautifying” bad news, while employees remained silent about failures.
According to Stephen Henriques, senior researcher at the Yale University Chief Executive Leadership Institute, when CEOs talk on earnings calls about the capabilities of AI and expected returns, it may sound great, “but how it actually permeates the entire economy is another matter.”
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has long predicted that artificial intelligence will create new jobs. This past June, he even suggested that AI could lead to labor shortages. When asked in May by CNBC about people’s fears that AI will replace jobs, he said the reason people are afraid is because “all the smart people have been saying this.”
Now, fewer people are saying this.
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