The Godfather of AI says that by 2026, AI will be used in many jobs.
Jeffrey Hinton, a computer scientist known as the “godfather of AI,” said in an interview on CNN's “State of the Union” published Sunday that AI will have the “ability to replace so many jobs” by 2026.
“AI will continue to improve. AI is already very good,” Hinton said.
“It can already replace call center jobs, but it can also replace many other jobs in the future,” he added.
Hinton said advances in AI are increasingly putting some white-collar jobs at risk.
“Every seven months, you'll be able to do about twice as long a task,” Hinton said, noting that AI has already moved from “a minute's worth of coding” to “an entire hour's worth of projects.”
“In a few years, we will be able to run software engineering projects that last several months, and by then we will need very few people,” he added.
Hinton likened the transition to AI to the industrial revolution, where human physical strength became less relevant for most jobs. He said AI risks doing things similar to human intelligence.
Hinton also said he was “more concerned” about AI as it was advancing faster than expected, particularly in its ability to reason and deceive people.
“If it believes you are trying to get rid of it, it will devise a plan to trick you into not getting it removed,” he added.
'2026 will be an “unemployment boom”
Economists predict an “unemployment boom” in 2026 as companies rely on AI to increase productivity without increasing labor costs.
“Growth and labor market outcomes are decoupled,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, wrote last week.
In the age of AI, companies are accomplishing more with fewer employees, Swonk wrote. “The hiring rush has left many overstaffed and now they are using attrition and layoffs to bring staffing levels in line with demand.”
However, AI is likely to increase hiring in 2026, especially for entry-level positions.
In an annual outlook survey released this month by advisory firm Teneo, 67% of CEOs surveyed said they expected AI to drive entry-level hiring in 2026, and a further 58% said they planned to add senior leadership roles.
According to the report, companies are hiring more for engineering and AI-focused positions, while many existing roles are being redesigned as routine tasks become automated.
The survey was conducted from October 14th to November 10th and surveyed more than 350 CEOs of public companies with annual revenues of $1 billion or more and approximately 400 institutional investors representing $19 trillion in portfolio value.
“AI is not wiping out today's workforce; it is reshaping it,” said Ryan Cox, global head of AI at Teneo.
