JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon said artificial intelligence “could move too fast for society” and cause “civil unrest” unless governments and businesses support displaced workers.
Although advances in AI will have enormous benefits, from increasing productivity to curing diseases, the technology may need to be introduced gradually to “save society”, he said.
Dimon said businesses and governments cannot ignore AI or “bury their heads in the sand.” The Wall Street lender will likely have fewer employees in five years as it deploys AI, he told a conference audience. World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.
“Your competitors are going to use it and countries are going to use it,” he said. “However, it may be moving too fast for society and if it’s going too fast for society, that’s where governments and businesses (need) to step in collaboratively and find a way to retrain people and move it over time.”
Dimon said local governments may need to use aid programs that supported wages and offered retraining, relocation and early retirement.
The 2 million commercial truck drivers in the United States are one example of an area that could need support as driverless trucks hit the road, he said.
“Do you have to do it all at once, if 2 million people go from driving a truck and making $150,000 a year to the next job (that) might cost $25,000? No. You’ll have civil unrest. So phase it in,” Dimon said.
“If we have to do this to save society… Society will have more production, we’ll cure a lot of cancer, you’re not going to slow it down. How do we put plans in place if it does something terrible?”
Dimon, who previously spoke Donald Trump’s speechoffered moderate criticism of the US president’s increasingly combative approach to Europe and NATO and his demands to take control of Greenland.
“If the goal is to make them stronger rather than fragmenting Europe, I think it’s not a problem,” Dimon said. “I would use our moral persuasion, our economic persuasion, our intelligence and our military to push Europe to do the things that are good for Europe. European leaders have to do it, it really can’t be done by America.”
Dimon revealed his concerns about Trump’s immigration crackdown, calling for calming “internal anger” over the issue.
“I don’t like what I see with five grown men beating little women,” Dimon said, referring to scenes of violence involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Arresting criminals is one thing, Dimon added, but he would like to have data showing who was arrested and whether they broke the law.
Dimon said many migrants play important roles in the U.S. economy, including health care, hospitality and agriculture. “We all know them. They are good people and they should be treated that way,” he said.
Jensen Huang, chief executive of the semiconductor maker Nvidiawhose chips are used to power many AI systems, argued that the threat was more a labor shortage than massive gains.
Downplaying fears of job losses due to AI, Huang told the meeting in Davos that “energy creates jobs, the microchip industry creates jobs, the infrastructure layer creates jobs…jobs, jobs, more jobs.”
He added: “This is the biggest infrastructure build in human history, it will create a lot of jobs. »
Many of these jobs are craft-related, Huang said, such as plumbers, electricians, construction workers, metal workers, network technicians and people who install equipment for AI deployment. This is already driving up wages in this field in the United States, he added, for people involved in building chip factories or AI data centers.
Huang also argued that AI robotics represented a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity for Europe, as the region had an “incredibly strong” industrial base.
“This is your opportunity to move beyond the software age,” he argued, an area in which Silicon Valley has long outperformed Europe.