After more than 40 years of studying AI, University of California, Berkeley professor Stuart Russell hasn’t changed his mind.
Co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the world’s most authoritative textbook on AI, he now spends up to 100 hours a week trying to avert what is considered a historic crisis that could put nearly the entire world’s population out of work.
Russell, one of the world’s most influential AI researchers and a recipient of the Royal Order of the British Empire for his contributions to computer science, told British entrepreneur Stephen Bartlett on Thursday’s CEO Diary podcast that the economic shock ahead is much bigger than governments realize.
“80% unemployment rate” is no longer a science fiction scenario
Russell said political leaders are “suddenly facing 80% unemployment” as AI systems accelerate to replace capabilities previously reserved for only the most skilled humans.
“AI systems are doing almost everything we currently call work,” he said. This includes areas where automation was once considered safe.
“Whatever you want to be a surgeon, it takes seven seconds for a robot to learn how to be a better surgeon than a human,” he added.
He suggested that fields once considered safe, from driving and logistics to accounting, software engineering and even medicine, are likely to be swept up in the coming wave of automation.
Russell joins a growing chorus of AI experts and technology leaders predicting historic levels of job losses.
Andrew Yang has warned that AI could eliminate 40 million US jobs over the next decade, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that up to half of entry-level white-collar roles could disappear within five years.
Companies like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and outgoing Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun believe that AI will transform jobs, not eliminate them.
Why the CEO may also be replaced
The chaos doesn’t stop at the top. Mr Russell said even senior executives would not be spared.
“Pity the poor CEO whose board is saying, ‘Unless you hand over decision-making power to an AI system, we’re going to have to fire you, because all of our competitors have AI-powered CEOs and they’re doing much better.'”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed similar thoughts in recent interviews.
“I think what CEOs are doing may one day be one of the easiest things for AI to do,” Pichai said. BBC last month.
Companies are already cutting jobs because of AI.
HP, IBM, Salesforce, and Klarna also cited AI as a factor in significant layoffs and layoffs announced over the past year.
“Even the biggest AI companies will have very few human employees in the long run,” Russell said.
A world where jobs disappear – and meaning needs to be reinvented
Russell believes that even if AI advances safely, the bigger challenge could be psychological. Humans find purpose in striving, solving problems and contributing to others, he said.
A society in which machines handle all productive tasks could move toward a future in which humans become passive, sedentary consumers who live for entertainment. This is a scenario he describes as one that is “not conducive to human flourishing.”
“We need to understand what the next stage is going to be, and how do we have incentives to become fully human in this world? I think that means at least the level of education that people currently have, and probably more,” he said.
So far, he added, no one — not AI researchers, economists, science fiction writers or futurists — has been able to convincingly explain that world.
