Jeff Bezos says AI could create a labor shortage, not mass unemployment

Jeff Bezos predicts AI will do the opposite of what most people fear.

Speaking at the VivaTech conference in Paris on Wednesday, the Amazon founder pushed back on growing fears that AI will eliminate large numbers of jobs.

Instead, he said that the technology will unlock new opportunities and increase demand for people capable of turning ideas into reality. “I know there’s a lot of concern that many people have, including many smart people, that AI is going to make humans redundant,” Bezos said. “I totally disagree with this point of view, and I think, in fact, AI is going to create a labor shortage.” “We have an endless set of things to invent,” Bezos added. “We are limited not by our imaginations but by what we can actually do.” Many workers and economists have warned that advances in AI could automate a wide range of tasks and displace employees.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released in early June found that about half of Americans worry that AI could threaten jobs and household incomes.

In Bezos’ view, however, AI could make it easier to turn concepts into reality, which in turn could create demand for more builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. “I promise you every single person in this audience has had an idea for a new business or a new product or a new device that they wish they could manufacture, and that idea stayed in your head and went nowhere,” Bezos said, “And the reason it stayed in your head and went nowhere is because it’s too hard to do, and it wasn’t worth it.” “If we can accelerate the dream build loop, all of the ideas will then become possible,” Bezos continued, “And then we end up being limited not by our capabilities, but by our imaginations.” One such example, said Bezos, is what AI could do for space exploration, potentially moving heavy industry off Earth. “If space travel gets reliable enough and inexpensive ​enough, and we ​can get materials from ⁠asteroids and near-Earth objects and the moon, then this garden planet can be returned to its pre-Industrial Revolution state,” Bezos said.

Bezos isn’t the only billionaire imagining a future beyond Earth.

Ahead of SpaceX’s IPO last week, Elon Musk described a world where humans live in lunar and Martian cities, AI data centers operate in space, and moon vacations become commonplace.