JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon shakes off doomsday predictions about what AI means for humanity – and instead lays out how he believes the technology will dramatically improve businesses and their employees’ work-life balance.
Even Dimon– a passionate advocate for long-established career norms such as work hardBe prepared for anything and work in the office– says future generations of employees could work one and a half days less each week thanks to AI.
In addition to shortening the work week from five to three and a half days per week, Dimon also predicts that workers could live to be 100 years old in the future.
Thousands of people at America’s largest bank are already using the technology, Dimon said Bloomberg TVand added that artificial intelligence is a “living, breathing thing” that will change throughout history.
The technology could be used by JPMorgan in a variety of areas – errors, trading, research and hedging, to name a few – arguably highlighting fears that AI will take over the work of human colleagues.
Goldman Sachs predicted that around 300 million jobs will be lost to technology, with around one quarter of the American workforce out of fear that they will lose their role in the future due to artificial intelligence.
But the advancement of technology is also something that societies have dealt with before, emphasized Dimon, adding that with AI and large language models there are also great opportunities to improve living standards.
“People need to take a deep breath,” Dimon said. “Technology has always replaced jobs. Their children will live to be 100 years old and not get cancer thanks to technology, and literally they will probably work three and a half days a week.”
Thanks to technology that automates some of their activities, employees have been able to reduce their working hours. McKinsey found in a report published last year.
The report also noted that generative AI and other emerging technologies have the potential to automate tasks that currently take up 60 to 70% of employees’ time – adding between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion to the global economy each year contributes.
And as companies continue to wrestle with how quickly AI will transform their industries, arguments are already being made for reducing the number of days in the current workweek.
A British study Across 61 organizations, research conducted by the University of Cambridge found a 65% reduction in sick days during a four-day week, while 71% of employees reported reduced levels of burnout. As a result, 92% of companies participating in the program said they would observe a three-day weekend.
However, Dimon and McKinsey are not the first business leaders to predict that technology will lead to a shortening of the workweek. In a 1930 essay entitled “Economic opportunities for our grandchildren“, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted it that his grandchildren’s generation would work 15-hour weeks due to increased productivity. The current average in the UK, Keynes is 36.4 hours.
“There are negatives”
Like many other thought leaders, Dimon understands that the technology could prove to be a powerful weapon if it falls into the wrong hands.
In response to the concerns of individuals such as: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak And Microsoft co-founder Bill GatesDimon said: “Technology has done incredible things for humanity, but, you know, plane crashes, pharmaceuticals are misused – there are negatives too.
“The biggest downside, in my opinion, is that AI is being used by bad people to do bad things.” Think cyberwar.”
How Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT Dimon, maker of OpenAI, also says he hopes to see guardrails put in place for the sector, but admits it could take some time for this to come to fruition since the technology is relatively new.
The New York-based bank’s billionaire boss also pointed out that some employees’ lives are being disrupted by technology displacing their roles. At least in the case of JPMorgan Chase, Dimon said he hopes to “reassign” any employees forced out of jobs by AI.
He compared it to JPMorgan’s takeover of First Republic in May 2023, when that bank fell victim to a wave of banking instability before agreeing to a $10 billion deal.
“At First Republic, we have offered jobs to 90% of people. They agreed, but we also told them that some of these jobs are temporary. “But we hire 30,000 people a year and believe that if we can do that, we can place them in a job locally in a different industry or a different role,” Dimon explained. “We will do this for any disruption caused by AI.”
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on October 3, 2023.