Editor's Note: Andrew Ng directly counters the narrative of "AI leading to massive unemployment" in his latest article. His key argument is that the software engineering industry is the most affected by AI, but recruitment demand remains strong; the U.S. unemployment rate remains at a healthy level of 4.3%. AI labs, SaaS companies, and companies implementing layoffs each have their own motivations to exaggerate AI's ability to replace jobs. The value of this article lies in the fact that it comes from someone who not only drives AI development but also has long been committed to promoting AI education.
(Note: Andrew Ng is a globally renowned AI scientist, educator, and entrepreneur, as well as a part-time professor at Stanford University. He co-founded the Google Brain team and served as Chief Scientist at Baidu, playing a key role in the widespread application of deep learning. He also founded Coursera and DeepLearning.AI, making outstanding contributions to global AI talent development.) The following is the original content of the article:
There Will Be No AI Unemployment Doomsday.
The story of "AI leading to massive unemployment" is creating unnecessary panic. AI, like any technology, will indeed affect employment, but blowing the narrative of "massive unemployment" out of proportion is both irresponsible and harmful. It needs to stop.
In my previous articles, I expressed doubts about the "AI unemployment doomsday." The good news is that mainstream media is now beginning to push back against this narrative. The image below collects some recent headlines.
Software engineering is the field most affected by AI tools, with coding agents at the forefront. However, the recruitment demand for software engineers remains strong. While there are indeed cases of AI replacing positions, the trend clearly indicates that the net job creation by AI far exceeds what it eliminates, just like in every previous wave of technology. Furthermore, despite the exciting progress of AI, the U.S. unemployment rate remains at a healthy 4.3%.
Who is Advocating the "AI Unemployment Doomsday"?
Why does the narrative of the "AI unemployment doomsday" have such a market?
First, cutting-edge AI labs have strong motivations to tell stories that make AI sound incredibly powerful. The most extreme version is the science fiction scenario where AI "takes over the world" and leads to human extinction. The logic is simple: if a technology can replace a large number of workers, then that technology must be very valuable.
Second, the pricing of many SaaS companies is between $100 and $1,000 per user per year. But if an AI company can replace an employee earning a $100,000 annual salary, or increase their efficiency by 50%, then charging $10,000 a year seems reasonable. The anchor point has shifted from the SaaS price to employee salary, allowing the AI company to charge a much higher price.
Additionally, companies themselves have an incentive to frame layoffs as being AI-driven. After all, "We have used AI to improve efficiency, so we have streamlined our workforce" sounds much better than "We hired too many people during the pandemic when capital was cheap." The latter's real reason was excessive hiring due to low interest rates and large-scale government fiscal stimulus.
This Is Not the Apocalypse of Jobs
I acknowledge that AI is changing many people's jobs. It's hard, and it can be anxiety-inducing (although some might find it quite intriguing). I understand everyone who is affected. However, a change in job content is very different from predicting an employment market collapse.
Society has the ability to tell itself a story for many years, even if that story has no real basis, and then make poor collective decisions based on it. For example: fear of nuclear power safety led to severely inadequate investment in nuclear power; the panic over the "population bomb" in the 1960s led many countries to implement strict population control policies; concerns about dietary fat led governments to promote decades of unhealthy high-sugar diets.
Mainstream media is now beginning to openly question the "AI job apocalypse" narrative. I hope that these stories will gradually lose their influence, just as the panic about "AI causing human extinction" is slowly fading.
It's Not an Apocalypse; It's a Job Celebration
My prediction is quite the opposite: there will be an AI jobs celebration. AI will create a large number of high-quality AI engineering jobs, and I am also optimistic about the future of the overall job market. The work done by AI engineers will be different from traditional software engineering, and many new roles will emerge in companies beyond the traditional large tech employers.
The skills required for non-AI positions will also change because of AI. Now is the time to encourage more people to learn AI and prepare for those different but abundant jobs in the future.
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