OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the very architect who helped unleash this AI whirlwind, has now taken the stage to warn that the technology he championed might be moving just a tad too quickly for the rest of the planet to keep up.
In a recent interview with Jimmy Fallon, Altman admitted that systems like ChatGPT are evolving so rapidly that global institutions, labour markets, and quite a few million workers could be left scrambling in the dust. Entire job categories, particularly the predictable, repetitive ones such as customer service and basic data processing, may simply vanish sooner than anyone planned.
“One of the things that I’m worried about is just the rate of change that’s happening in the world right now,” Altman told Jimmy Fallon. “This is a three-year-old technology. No other technology has ever been adopted by the world this fast.”
He described the coming disruption as cramming several decades of economic upheaval into a handful of years, with the gentle reminder that some workers might never again enjoy the stable careers they once expected. Societies, he suggested, should probably get around to managing that transition sometime soon.
On a brighter note, Altman reassured everyone that the jobs of tomorrow will reward uniquely human qualities AI still can’t fake: empathy, creativity, judgment, and emotional intelligence. Healthcare, caregiving, teaching, and the arts should remain relatively safe, at least until the next breakthrough.
Economists and corporate leaders mostly agree with the analysis coming from the very man who unleashed the monster. Analysts expect AI to supercharge productivity and growth, yet quietly admit the promised new jobs may arrive long after the old ones have been automated out of existence.
A recent New York Times article recently warned of the dangers of Agentic AI and the government efforts to handle it. A 2025 survey revealed that while nearly every large company now uses AI tools, only a brave few claim to have any real plan for the ethical fallout or workforce upheaval.
“It seems very likely to a large number of people that we will get massive unemployment caused by AI,” said Geoffrey Hinton, the Godfather of AI. “Trying to predict the future of it is going to be very difficult. It’s a bit like when you drive in fog. You can see clearly for 100 yards and at 200 yards you can see nothing. Well, we can see clearly for a year or two, but 10 years out, we have no idea what’s going to happen.”
Altman, ever the optimist, urged governments, companies, and universities to treat AI as the defining challenge of our time: stronger safety rules, updated labour laws, massive reskilling initiatives, and a proactive stance rather than the usual panicked reaction after the fact.
Altman believes that societies can either prepare deliberately and intelligently, or discover, somewhat awkwardly, that the future arrived while they were still drafting the committee report. You can watch his interview here: