A leading figure in AI is sounding an alarm about the widening gap between Silicon Valley’s optimism and the public’s deepening fear over job losses.
In an interview at the Masters of Scale Summit, AI pioneer Andrew Ng says a major narrative is taking hold across the country as workers hear politicians frame AI as a direct threat to their livelihoods.
Ng says the mood inside the tech sector does not reflect what many people across the nation are feeling.
“We’re in Silicon Valley, where most of us love AI. I love AI, love what I do, I think it makes the world better. I think many of us may underestimate the distrust that a lot of people across the nation have for AI.”
He describes how job anxieties are reshaping public sentiment far outside tech hubs.
“It turns out, we all get excited about productivity improvements, but when a product contact center worker is scared of losing their job, or a fast food worker. Here’s a politician saying, ‘yep, guess what, these AI people, they’re going to make your job go away.’ That creates a lot of fear and distrust of AI that we don’t really see here in Silicon Valley.”
Ng says the industry must focus on ensuring the technology benefits everyone and work to rebuild national trust. He says AI could supercharge a wide range of careers if tools are accessible and workers are properly trained.
“So I think to win people over, we need to make sure technology genuinely benefits everyone at large. And I think there is a path to that. AI can make individuals much more effective and much more productive, but to get the tools available to everyone, teach everyone to use it, that’s upskilling, improve the tools…
I feel like with the concept of a 10X engineer, I think with AI, we can have 10X marketers, 10X analysts, 10X finance professionals, but to actually make that happen, it feels like there’s a lot of work ahead of us, and I worry that we have not yet won the trust of a lot of people in this country. “
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