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Artificial intelligence dominated the conversation when JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon sat down for an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, as the chief exec called for government strategy to help manage the transition in the workplace.
Dimon was asked whether he shared predictions that half of all entry level white collar jobs will be gone in one to five years and if AI would spark a “cataclysmic impact on the labor market.” He replied: “Yeah, I don't know about that. As a business person, my view is, don't put your head in the sand. It is what it is. We're going to deploy it.
“Will it eliminate jobs? Yes. Will it change jobs? Yes. Will it add some jobs? Probably. It is what it is and you can hope for the world you want, but we're going to get, you're going to get the world you got and your competitors are going to use it, countries are going to use it.”
Dimon then offered a warning on the pace of adopting AI in workforce strategies: “I do think it may go too fast for society. And if it goes too fast for society, that's where government and business in a collaborative way should step in together and come up with a way to retrain and, you know, people or, you know, move it over time.”
Calls for retraining and phased transitions
Much of the conversation shifted toward the challenge of managing widespread skill transitions, with Dimon saying: “You go back, trade adjustment assistance was supposed to do that. You know, if a town loses a factory, they lose jobs, you have income assistance, relocation, you know, early retirement, retraining. We may have to do that.”
He argued that governments needed to intervene with a practical playbook, saying they must “have a plan to retrain people, relocate people, income assist people.”
To illustrate his point, Dimon pointed to autonomous trucking, saying “2 million commercial trucks in the United States. You know, it may get to the point you can push a button, you're going to save lives, it's going to be faster, you're going to save CO2. It's obviously makes sense. And should you do it all at once if 2 million people go from driving a truck making 200, you know, $150,000 a year, to a next job might be $25,000. No. You'll have civil unrest. You know, so therefore, phase it in, retrain."
‘My guess is it’ll be fewer employees’
The discussion ended with a direct question about whether JPMorgan Chase will have fewer employees in five years' time.
“Well, if we're good, we'll have, you know, we're growing still around the world, but my guess is it'll be fewer employees, yeah," he replied.
