The artificial intelligence revolution could create even greater wealth inequality, according to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. That’s why Fink urges the world’s business and political leaders to proactively consider ways to ensure that workers are not left behind in the economic growth that AI will generate.
“AI will affect white-collar jobs in the same way that globalization has affected blue-collar jobs.” [work]we need to confront it head on. “Rather than an abstract concept of ‘tomorrow’s jobs,’ we have a credible plan for widespread participation in the interests,” Fink said in his opening remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 20.
Fink was referring to some experts who link the rise in international trade and U.S. companies’ outsourcing of labor overseas in the second half of the 20th century to a decline in blue-collar employment and lower wages for U.S. workers, even though businesses benefited.
Fink argued that the rise of generative AI technology could have a similar impact on white-collar workers, at a time when several prominent CEOs across industries, from Amazon’s Andy Jassy to Ford’s Jim Farley, have touted plans to slow hiring or cut jobs while letting AI tools do their jobs.
Lawrence D.W. Schmidt, an economist and associate professor of finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies the impact of AI on the labor market, says the comparison to past technological disruptions is apt. From the digital age to the logistics and communications technologies that have made globalization possible, past technological disruptions have typically created “both winners and losers” in the workplace, Schmidt said.
“It devalues existing expertise while at the same time creating many new opportunities. In that sense, AI may not be that distinguishable from past technologies,” he says.
This technology has the potential to have a significant impact on knowledge workers by automating the repetitive, data-intensive cognitive tasks that typically define white-collar roles. Even within the AI industry, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned in an essay posted on his website on Monday that “half of all entry-level white-collar jobs could be replaced by AI in the next one to five years, despite accelerating economic growth and scientific progress.”
AI can be a “powerful ally” for workers
Even as more companies adopt new technologies, Schmidt points out that AI still doesn’t address workers’ biggest fears. A study published in October by the Yale Institute for Budget Research found that AI has not caused “obvious disruption” to the overall labor market since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022.
Some leaders in the AI industry, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, contend that any eventual disruption caused by increased use of AI in the workplace will be offset by the additional jobs created as a result of subsequent productivity gains and overall economic growth.
“You won’t lose your job to AI, but you will lose your job to someone using AI,” Huang said at the Milken Institute World Congress in May 2025.
Companies that effectively implement AI are likely to increase productivity, which in turn increases both revenue and employee numbers, Schmidt says. That growth is “kind of a rising tide that’s going to lift all boat-type phenomena,” he said, adding that AI is essentially “[creates] It’s a huge opportunity to create a new body of work that didn’t exist before. ”
His advice is to find ways for AI to increase your productivity and reallocate the remaining time to “things it’s bad at.” That could include the kinds of soft skills that AI cannot replace, such as communication, creativity, and critical thinking.
For Schmidt, such adaptation is the key to avoiding Fink’s warnings. And, as Fink pointed out, business and government leaders also need to help, Schmidt said. In particular, he says, employers should “assure existing employees that their jobs are safe if they collaborate and help think about how to leverage AI” to make their businesses more efficient and productive.
“The more energy I put into catching them, the more [AI’s] The more people that are replaced by AI have the advantage of being the ones who learn to work with AI and work in a different way instead, the better the future of work will be,” says Schmidt.
Want to leverage AI to advance your work? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. Beyond the basics: How to use AI to enhance your work. Learn advanced AI skills like building custom GPTs and using AI agents to increase your productivity today.
