Bezos: AI will result in labor shortages instead of replacing humans

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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Wednesday said he thinks artificial intelligence (AI) will create a shortage of labor rather than replacing human labor.

Former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino asked Bezos and Blue Origin CEO David Limp at the VivaTech technology conference in Paris about implementing Bezos’ new AI startup Prometheus with Blue Origin’s engineering. The Amazon founder said he disagrees with many people, “including many smart people, that AI is ⁠going to make humans redundant and so on.”

“I totally disagree with this point of view, and I think, ​in fact, AI is going to create a labor shortage because it’s going to make it possible for people to identify more problems,” Bezos continued. “We have an endless set of things to invent and we are only limited –– today, we are only limited not by our imaginations but by why what we can actually do.”

Bezos’ praise of AI comes as companies cite the implementation of AI as justification for layoffs.

Of the more than 97,000 job cuts in May, U.S.-based employers cited AI as the leading reason for 37,579, accounting for 40 percent of all cuts, according to a report released earlier this month by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The findings mark the third straight month that cuts have risen, with AI being a major contributing factor.

“The labor market is being reshaped by technology in real time” Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in the report. “AI is now the leading reason companies give for cutting jobs and the primary industry citing it is Technology. Technology, already the year’s biggest job cutter, saw its steepest cuts since early 2023, even as it remains the sector with the most hiring plans this year.”

The latest polling from Reuters/Ipsos shows that more than half of Americans fear they or someone in their home will lose their job to AI.

The Trump administration has taken a friendly approach to the AI industry, with the president signing an executive order earlier this month stating that AI labs can voluntarily provide the government with their models for a period of up to 30 days before they plan to release them publicly.

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