Jeff Bezos predicts AI will cause labour shortages, not job replacement
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said that artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to labour shortages rather than making humans redundant. He made the remarks at the VivaTech conference in Paris, where he also discussed 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 labour shortage.”
His comments come at a time when many companies, particularly in the technology sector, have been cutting jobs after investing heavily in AI. According to a report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, US-based employers announced 97,006 job cuts in May, with AI linked to 40% of the layoffs. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this month found that half of Americans fear AI could put them or someone in their household out of work.
There has been widespread pushback against AI use from various groups, including Gen Z workers entering the job market, unions at South Korean carmakers, and Hollywood scriptwriters.
Bezos argued that people have “endless” things to do, and that AI will lower barriers that currently limit productivity. Amazon itself has cut about 30,000 corporate roles since late last year, partly due to AI efficiency gains. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had previously said that increasing automation through AI tools would lead to corporate job losses.
Bezos, the world’s fourth-richest person with a net worth around $250 billion, also spoke about his space ambitions. He said one goal of space exploration is to move polluting industries 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,” he said.
Blue Origin CEO David Limp, appearing alongside Bezos, said that reconstruction of the firm’s launch pad for New Glenn rockets has begun in Florida after a dramatic explosion in May.
Bezos’s space company competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Musk has also outlined ambitious plans, including creating cities on the moon and Mars, firing AI data centres into space, and offering space vacations.
