Sam Altman downplays AI impact, Anthropic warns
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- Chris Olah warned at the Vatican AI ethics conference that AI could displace human labor on a very large scale.
- Sam Altman told Commonwealth Bank of Australia CEO Matt Comyn AI is unlikely to cause a jobs apocalypse and that his earlier projections were wrong.
- Meta cut nearly 8,000 jobs after announcing $125 billion in AI capital expenditures for the year.
- Stanford researchers reported that unemployment rises since 2023 have been concentrated in sectors with little AI exposure, while software engineering openings on Indeed rose 18% year‑over‑year.
- LinkedIn’s chief economist said AI has generated about 1.3 million new job postings.
- Uber COO said AI costs are becoming harder to justify after the CTO exhausted the 2026 IT budget on AI usage.
- Microsoft is winding down some Claude Code licenses as token costs proved too high.
Why it matters: Tech firms face pressure to justify AI spending as layoffs rise, while workers in AI‑exposed roles see hiring growth; the divergent data underscores that AI can both cut costs for companies and spur new job categories, reshaping labor markets and pressures policymakers to craft nuanced responses.
