Jamie Dimon wants society to start worrying about AI-driven job loss before it actually happens.<\/p>\n
The longtime JPMorgan Chase<\/a> CEO told investors at a company event<\/a> on Tuesday that businesses and governments need to start preparing now in order to handle the labor disruption that AI could bring.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not predicting [it] can be a problem. I\u2019m simply saying now\u2019s the time to start thinking about what you do if it does,\u201d Dimon warned.<\/p>\n In characteristically blunt fashion, the CEO added that JPMorgan wasn\u2019t going to put its \u201chead in the sand\u201d when it comes to AI transformation. To the contrary, he said, the bank is deploying AI aggressively and already has an LLM model that 150,000 people use every week<\/a>.<\/p>\n But thanks to the productivity gains brought on by AI, it\u2019s likely JPMorgan will employ fewer people in the next five years, Dimon said<\/a> last month at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.<\/p>\n While Dimon worries about how society will react to an exodus of AI-displaced employees, he is making sure JPMorgan isn\u2019t caught off guard. In fact, the company is taking critical steps to prepare for a technologically fueled transition, complete with \u201chuge redeployment\u201d plans he said are in place.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have displaced people from AI,\u201d Dimon said, \u201cand we offer them other jobs. They are usually well-trained and highly talented, very good at things.\u201d<\/p>\n The broader concern, though, is what happens if society gets caught off guard by this disruption. Dimon illustrated his point with a hypothetical scenario he previously mentioned in Davos. Autonomous vehicles could, in theory, replace the 2 million commercial truck drivers in the U.S. overnight, saving lives, cutting fuel costs, and reducing wear on highways.\u00a0<\/p>\n But, Dimon said, the benefits don\u2019t outweigh the broader costs associated with eliminating these jobs all at once. What would happen to the truck drivers who could see their six-figure income disappear overnight and may have to settle for a lower-skilled job paying a fraction of what they were making previously, Dimon questioned.<\/p>\n \u201cI was saying, \u2018That\u2019s kind of really bad, kind of civilly, should we as society agree to that?\u2019 I don\u2019t think so,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n The answer, he said, is to phase in change incrementally, and give society time to adapt. This is not the first time Dimon has pushed this message. At Davos, he said AI\u2019s effect on labor \u201cmay go too fast for society,\u201d and added<\/a> he would welcome a government ban on mass AI layoffs \u201cif we have to do that to save society.\u201d He also said local governments should offer incentives to companies to retrain workers.<\/p>\n Yet Dimon was clear on Tuesday that AI is going to revolutionize business. He noted that while the technology\u2019s results may not have fully surfaced, JPMorgan has deeply embedded AI in its operations and it plans to be at the frontier of this change.\u00a0<\/p>\n