{"id":287677,"date":"2026-02-12T14:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/287677\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:41:13","slug":"khan-academy-ceo-warns-even-a-10-workforce-reduction-due-to-ai-will-feel-like-a-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/287677\/","title":{"rendered":"Khan Academy CEO warns even a 10% workforce reduction due to AI ‘will feel like a depression’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1997, IBM<\/a> supercomputer Deep Blue defeated the reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov. In 2023, ChatGPT passed the bar exam. And last year, Google<\/a> DeepMind<\/a> clinched gold at the International Math Olympiad.<\/p>\n

These milestones are only expected to accelerate, with some business leaders, including SpaceX<\/a> CEO Elon Musk, predicting artificial general intelligence\u2014AI that is able to meet or surpass human intelligence\u2014could arrive as early as this year. While avid sci-fi fans and business leaders are thrilled by the technology\u2019s potential, others caution about the economic downsides.<\/p>\n

Salman Khan<\/a>, the CEO of Khan Academy and vision steward at TED\u2014two organizations that provide free online education services for more than 200 million users globally\u2014predicts the AI revolution will hit harder and faster than most are predicting (although the AI doomers are getting louder in early 2026). And while AI experts like Geoffrey Hinton, the British computer scientist widely known as the \u201cgodfather of AI,\u201d have warned<\/a> the technology could trigger mass unemployment, Khan said even a 10% decrease could bring the burn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf white-collar work were to shrink even 10%,\u201d Khan told Fortune, \u201cit\u2019s going to feel like a depression.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Khan said to look beyond the ensuing AI encroachment on white-collar jobs triggering mass unemployment a bit\u2014it could also cause an identity crisis among a large portion of the population. \u201cThey\u2019ve been making upper middle class, affluent salaries for the last 20 years,\u201d Khan said. \u201cTheir identity is tied to this. And now all of a sudden, you\u2019re going to have this mass shift in the job market.\u201d<\/p>\n

While no one can say exactly how significantly AI will upheave the labor market\u2014if at all\u2014recent research predicts an uptick in unemployment thanks to the technology. A 2025 MIT study<\/a> found AI could replace nearly 12% of the U.S. workforce, nearly triple the current rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From Uber drivers to radiology techs<\/p>\n

Part of Khan\u2019s concern stems from conversations he\u2019s shared with business leaders within the tech industry. \u201cPeople behind closed doors are talking about pretty bold things these days,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve heard people say you could do the same work with a quarter of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just white-collar jobs that will be impacted. Khan predicts robotic automation has already set in motion a displacement among the gig economy. From Waymo to Tesla<\/a>, driverless cars are popping up across the U.S. While adoption is still uneven, Khan predicts driverless cars will become the norm, potentially impacting more than 1 million rideshare drivers across the country.<\/p>\n

Khan\u2019s solution? As detailed in a recent New York Times<\/a> op-ed, the CEO proposes a 1% commitment from major corporations of personnel costs or profits to fund a national reskilling collective. While many employers already invest in skill development, the CEO said those programs are way too specific and untransferable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t figure out how the laid-off truck driver or delivery driver can become a radiology tech or a nurse\u2019s aid or something,\u201d Khan said, \u201cwe\u2019re going to have a huge problem on our hands. I don\u2019t see any other solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be sure, the economy hasn\u2019t shown signs of a massive reskilling effort just yet. Wednesday\u2019s jobs numbers<\/a> were much better than expected, with unemployment falling to 4.3%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, AI is starting to chip away at the workforce. Last year, about 55,000 layoffs were connected to AI. Salesforce<\/a> laid off<\/a> 4,000 customer service workers after implementing AI. And other business leaders, like Amazon CEO Andy Jassy<\/a>, have alluded to future AI cuts.<\/p>\n

Khan said these early rumbles act as a warning sign that leaders must act now to prevent a severe job disruption. \u201cWhen three years [from now] the stuff is really hitting the fan, you can\u2019t wait another year to even have something to start mitigating the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1997, IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated the reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov. In 2023, ChatGPT passed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,2116,85,46,4980,17226,125,2958,34306],"class_list":{"0":"post-287677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-employment","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-layoffs","15":"tag-skills","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-unemployment","18":"tag-upskilling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}