TLDR: Wharton professor Ethan Mollick advises skepticism regarding AI’s impact on future employment, stating that ‘No one knows anything’ about the long-term effects. He emphasizes that job security in the AI era will depend on combining multiple human skills, rather than focusing on single technical abilities.
Ethan Mollick, an associate professor at the Wharton School and author of ‘Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI,’ is considered a leading expert on the evolving landscape of generative AI, jobs, and the economy. However, he urges caution against trusting predictions about AI’s future impact on employment. ‘Leading is not that far a lead as an expert,’ Mollick told CNBC’s Sharon Epperson at the CNBC Workforce Executive Council Summit. He bluntly stated, ‘No one knows anything’ when it comes to the long-term implications of AI on the job market.
Mollick’s perspective highlights the rapid progress in generative AI, but also the vast unknowns surrounding its future development and societal integration. He suggests that the safest jobs in the coming AI era will not necessarily be the most technical, but rather the most complex, requiring a ‘skill bundling’ strategy. This involves combining diverse human skills such as emotional intelligence, judgment, creativity, and domain expertise. According to Mollick, ‘AI may outperform you in one or two things, but if your job requires five or six of them, it’s a lot harder to replace.’
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This insight redefines employability in an increasingly automated world. With AI usage surging – a Gallup poll indicates that 40% of U.S. workers now use AI at least a few times a year – these career choices are becoming increasingly critical. Mollick also issues a stark warning about the ambitions of tech labs, stating, ‘Labs are aiming for machines smarter than humans within the next three years.’ He adds, ‘They’re betting on mass unemployment. Whether they succeed or not is still unclear, but we have to take it as a real possibility.’ This sentiment is echoed by figures like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who, despite his company powering advanced AI systems, has also predicted that AI will create more millionaires in five years than the internet.
