Amazon founder says AI will lead to labour shortage

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicted that artificial iIntelligence will lead to labor shortages, not the replacement of humans, Reuters writes.

Bezos put forward a rosy vision of how technology will help humanity, speaking about projects including his ​space venture Blue Origin and his new AI startup Prometheus.

“I know ​there’s a lot of concern that many people have, including many smart people, that AI is ⁠going to make humans redundant and so on,” Bezos said. “I totally disagree with this point of view. And I think, ​in fact, AI is going to create a labor shortage.”

The comments come when global companies cut thousands of jobs after investing ​heavily in AI, with many, primarily tech firms, pointing to higher efficiencies from the technology’s rapid adoption.

Bezos, the ⁠world’s forth-richest person with a net worth around $250 billion, argued that people have “endless” things to do, and are currently limited by barriers that he said AI would lower.

Amazon, too, has trimmed some 30,000 corporate roles since late last year, partly due to AI efficiency gains. Its CEO Andy Jassy had previously said increasing automation through AI tools would result in corporate job ​losses.