Worry about lack of workers, not technology, says former Google CEO

Future worker shortage from falling birth rates should be bigger worry than AI replacing jobs, says Eric Schmidt, former Chief Executive of Google.
By: | May 26, 2023
Topics: Employee Experience | Job Cuts | Markets

The increasing spate of anxiety over artificial intelligence (AI) causing massive job losses across the world is an overstated one, according to Eric Schmidt, Google’s former Chief Executive.

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council recently, he suggested that instead of worrying about the potential loss of jobs from the advent of new technology, the focus should be how declining birth rates around the world is creating a future shortage of workers, reported Market Watch.

“All the demographics say there’s going to be a shortage of humans for jobs. Literally too many jobs and not enough people for at least the next 30 years,” said Schmidt.

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Where AI is concerned, he raised his concerns over an existential crisis that could potentially bring harm to millions of people. He cited the example where hackers could exploit AI to find weaknesses in security systems and called for more regulation to be out in place to prevent AI from being misused.

Schmidt also highlighted how AI advances will continue impacting and changing the way people live in a technological cycle that has evolved at the fastest rate in the almost 50 years he has been in the technology business. “We don’t understand the impact of having that level of intelligence next to us in our daily minutes and hours,” he concluded.