Alphabet Inc.’s top lawyer Kent Walker tried to quell growing fears that AI will eliminate jobs, saying the technology will instead enhance a worker’s life if harnessed correctly.
“Jobs will change, but not go away,” Walker told FOX Business at a discussion in Washington, D.C., on Thursday in response to concerns on whether jobs will be replaced by automation. “AI automates tasks, not jobs.”
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Walker argued that if productivity-enhancing tools are used in the right way, they can ensure “national success, competitiveness and [the] ability for all of us to live healthy, happy lives.”
“If we can harness them in the right way, it actually helps America’s position and helps individual workers be able to do more in their everyday lives,” he said.
Walker, the president of global affairs for Google and its parent company, Alphabet, has been working with industry leaders and policymakers on how to responsibly deploy and manage this technology given the risks that come with these tools, which Walker says will be a very powerful force.
In 2018, he oversaw the creation of Google’s AI Principles. He is also the chair of the company’s Advanced Technology Review Council.
Walker added that jobs will be enhanced, not necessarily eliminated. As an example, he said that at the time of the introduction of the ATM in the 1970s, bank tellers thought the machines would replace their jobs altogether.
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“We now have more bank tellers than we’ve ever had before in the United States,” Walker said. “That’s because ATMs made it cheaper to open up bank branches around the country.”
Tellers, he continued, went from just handing out cash to helping customers with loans and other kinds of financial services.
“It’s a nice example of how jobs change over time and become, in some ways, more interesting and rewarding,” Walker added.
He said it’s vital to remember that many jobs have a lot of different tasks built into them, and employing AI will make those tasks easier and make employees more productive and accomplish tasks in a shorter time frame, which he says is “a win for everyone.”
“We’re seeing more and more use of AI throughout society, and we’ve never had lower unemployment rates or higher job satisfaction,” Walker said.
The comments come after a Goldman Sachs’ report projecting that “generative AI could substitute up to one-fourth of current work” globally. In the March report, the major financial institution estimated that upward of 300 million jobs could be lost with the proliferation of this technology. However, the bank also noted that “worker displacement from automation has historically been offset by creation of new jobs.”
The report also noted that “the emergence of new occupations following technological innovations accounts for the vast majority of long-run employment growth.”
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At the same time, regulating this technology is critical, according to Walker. He argued that “the race should be for the best AI regulations, not the first AI regulations.”