AI Rapidly Replacing Labor – Workers
Artificial intelligence is already taking jobs from human workers, but according to renowned computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, the real disruption may only be getting started.
In a weekend interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Hinton predicted that AI systems will make significant leaps in 2026, gaining capabilities that could allow them to replace an even wider range of jobs than they do now.
Hinton, a 2024 Nobel Prize winner perennially referred to as the “godfather of AI” for his foundational work on neural networks, described the pace of progress as startling — moving even “faster than I thought.”
“It’s already able to replace jobs in call centers,” Hinton said. “But it’s going to be able to replace many other jobs.”
“The ‘godfather of AI’ says the AI jobs wipeout is just beginning,” Quartz Geoffrey Hinton: “AI is coming for many more jobs in 2026,” continued . . .
AI has replaced the call center at one utility I need to deal with. Totally, as I have been unable to reach a human at all. I guess I will need to drive about 75 miles and show up at one of their physical locations, assuming it is still there. They did say they would get back to me, or at least there were words to that effect on the web page where I uploaded the documents they needed for my transaction. I will give them a week after the holidays before I gas up the car.
@Jane,
The centenarian writer for The New Yorker, Calvin Tomkins, has this trenchant observation about AI:
“Much attention these days is paid to the benefits and the dangers of artifical intelligence (A.I.), but hardly any is paid to what I call artifical stupidity (A.S.). . . . Artificial stupidity means deciding to believe something that has no basis in fact, logic, or common sense.”
These kind of scare stories have been the main makeeting tool of the AI industry for years now. The target isnt workers or the general public, its potential customers (get on board before you miss out) and funding sources (give us money because we still can’t find revenue).
Now that all the standalone LLM(AI) companies have come to the end of the runway with easy funding we can expect this kind of marketing stories to pick back up. They desperately need customers and more funding sources.
Lots of call center jobs were automated years ago before the term AI was ever being used for this. This is hardly startling. Rebranding old solutions……
Jay:
Can AI eliminate Labor Cost and the Overhead tied to it?
It is really no different than CNC replacing the multi-functions required using NC and single operation machines such as turret lathes.
Automation, computers and LLM auto-complete will certainly continue to do a mix of augmenting certain jobs and replacing others.
Could LLMs replace some labor? Definitely yes. Could LLMs replace all labor like it is frequently marketed to us? Lol, no.
The hype and constant ‘end of jobs’ marketing effort doesn’t really match up with reality of what these auto-complete functions have been able to do after several years years of searching for use cases and what they will be able to do in the future.
Just have to remember that 99% of what we see/read about LLM’s is marketing, not analysis. The scare quotes ‘moving FASTER THAN I THOUGHT!!!’ are a great example.
Jay:
In my comment to you, I was discussing Labor Replacement occurring decades ago. I was working within manufacturing facilities globally. Labor is the smallest portion of the cost of manufacturing in many instances and in many places. Labor cost in manufacturing is a small portion. The Overhead is of great burden in the US.
The machinery was built to do many functions which in the past required Labor. It has become even more accommodating to the needs of manufacturing since I was a part of it. In attending machine-tool fairs in China and the US, there were many different vendors offering up their wares. It was amazingly interesting. By the way, I did not read it, I was a part of that era of modernization minimizing Labor Input and the various costs associated with Labor.
Moving faster than I thought was occurring decades ago. You are decades too late in discussing this as it occurred and is still occurring with Labor input.