These are very powerful technologies, just as those machines in the 1940s were very powerful in terms of their ability to do calculations. What this will do is create a great deal of wealth. The question is, who gets that wealth? The problem is this particular technology, for all of its benefits and for all the ways it is going to make life more pleasant and cheaper and generate a great deal of wealth, is going to generate most of that wealth for a very small group of people who are the ones who can afford to invest in that automation. [...] There will just be much less jobs than there are people, no matter how you shuffle it. (2016) source Unverified

Despite all the studies, I do not think anybody really knows the degree to which jobs are affected by digital change. I do not believe in the mass unemployment scenario. It is very easy to blame robots. Sometimes people forget that by helping with repetitive or dangerous tasks at home and at work, robots improve daily life. When the Industrial Revolution began in the 1700s, there was concern about the deep-seated transformation that it would trigger. But in the longer term, that transformation and its aftermath created millions of jobs. (2017) source Unverified

It is a popular misconception to believe that technological development destroys jobs. The organization of work is a social matter. If, thanks to modern machines, we need less time to produce food and other goods, then that opens up attractive perspectives: people could work five instead of eight hours a day for the same pay. There is also a huge demand for qualified workers in education and health. It is due to capitalism that this demand is not met and that technological progress contributes to people becoming unemployed. Ultimately, the central struggle is to shorten overall working time: when, thanks to automation and digitization, labor productivity in a society increases, this should lead to more leisure and freedom for everyone. (2016) source Unverified

AI is thus a general-purpose technology that can automate work in virtually every occupation. It stands in contrast to other technologies such as computerisation and industrial robotics, which only allow a limited set of tasks to be automated by implementing manually specified rules. The empirical evidence on the effect of AI-enabled technologies on jobs and wages is still evolving. For example, both Felten et al. (2019) and Acemoglu et al. (2022) conclude that occupations more exposed to AI experience no significant impact on employment. [...] Moreover, Felten et al. (2019) find that occupations impacted by AI actually experience a small rise in wages. (2023) source Unverified

The fact is that we're ending mass wage labor. This is what's going on with all the companies I've been working with. Mass labor is disappearing forever. Even if you retrained the entire workforce of Europe so that they would be qualified for these high-tech jobs, there would never be enough work in this sector to absorb mass labor. That's true all over the world. (2005) source Unverified

Without ownership stakes, workers will become serfs working on behalf of the robots’ overlords who own the companies and corporate capital. […] If human workers own a stake in the capital gained from the technologies that are changing the world of work, they will be provided with a steady stream of income and more inclined to accept increasing robotization of the workplace. Each country will have to choose the way that best fits to spread worker ownership and capital so as to give a stream of earnings that are changing the world of work. With appropriate policies, the higher productivity due to robots can improve worker well-being, by raising incomes and creating more leisure time. To benefit from this, workers need to own the capital of companies rather than rely on government redistribution policies. (2015) source Unverified

I think artificial intelligence will disrupt all the different business models and it’s the next disruption to come. So I want to be part of it. Otherwise I will just be subjected to this disruption without creating jobs in this country. So that’s where we are. And there is a huge acceleration and as always the winner takes all in this field. Third, I want AI to be totally federalized. Why? Because AI is about disruption and dealing with impacts of disruption. For instance, this kind of disruption can destroy a lot of jobs in some sectors and create a need to retrain people. But AI could also be one of the solutions to better train these people and help them to find new jobs, which is good for my country, and very important. (2018) source Unverified

And the fear is that the AI revolution might create mass unemployment because it make a number of jobs redundant. We can now automate tasks that we would never have thought we would automate. And for example, generating images, synthesis of notes, even medical consultations, to such large extent, some of the tasks that are involved in those jobs might be now replaced by AI. And there are jobs like for example, translator or dubbing films, movie dubber that may become completely redundant once AI is introduced and generative AI is introduced. So there is this big fear of mass unemployment and there is what we call the existential risk. And the second belief is that AI will create mass unemployment and destroy jobs, including skilled jobs. Here I will try to tamper that belief and say that things do not look as bad as one might think, but each time what will come out of my talk is that it all depends of the institutions and policies we put against the AI revolution. I think all progress of humankind is always the joint result of technological progress and institutional change, and it all depends how institutions adapt or do not adapt to the technological revolution. (2024) source Unverified

We have to win the robotics race. We are not even close right now. […] Which means we are going to face the fact that, if nothing in the States changes, we will find ourselves dependent on other countries for almost everything that can and will be manufactured in a quickly approaching future. “We have to face the fact that countries are going to lose jobs to robotics, […] The only question that needs to be answered is which country will create and own the best robotic technology and have the infrastructure necessary to enable it.” (2017) source Unverified

A country can outsource a lot of things, but outsourcing all of your intelligence makes no sense. Intelligence is too foundational. … Intelligence comes from the data of your country. The data of your country belongs to your country. It’s your people’s knowledge. It’s your people’s culture. It codifies your common sense. Most of the data is not even on the internet. A lot of it is in your libraries or your companies. That data belongs to you. You should find a way to harvest that data, transform that data into AI; you can still use public models, but here in France, you have the benefit of Mistral [AI]. (2025) source Unverified