Ronnie Chatterji, chief economist at OpenAI, said the rise of AI will not make human workers redundant. “Just because AI is introduced for a task, it doesn’t mean it can replace humans,” Chatterji said at the European Central Bank’s annual event in Sintra, Portugal. “We need to think more deeply about what jobs are and how they will evolve. This will help us advise people on labor market trends without being blindly optimistic or pessimistic.”
Chatterji highlighted his family's ties to new technology in a conversation with European Central Bank chief economist Philip Lane at an event for central bankers around the world.
“In 1985, my father, also an economist, whose work was heavily influenced by personal computers, had a computer in his office for the first time,” he said. "He used to have to run regression analysis on punch cards in a large computer room. Now he can do it on his own computer. This has greatly improved his productivity over time."
The impact of AI on the economy has become a central concern for the European Central Bank and other central banks, as large-scale labor replacement could have a significant impact on economic growth and inflation. Although the agency's researchers said there were no signs of job cuts so far this year, President Christine Lagarde said she was very concerned about the issue.
Policymakers are also thinking about how much the euro zone could gain from the technology without having the most advanced models yet. However, Lagarde believes that rapid adoption of this technology can still bring many benefits to Europeans.
Chatterji emphasized that early concerns about job losses due to AI have not materialized, citing software development as an example.
"As AI capabilities improve, the loss of these jobs is actually not as severe as people predicted," he said.