The “godfather” of artificial intelligence warns: AI will take away our work. Only some of the competitions are safe

Geoffrey Hinton, a 77-year-old retired computer science professor at Toronto, a former Google employee and a winner of the Turing Award, in 2024 he was honored with the Nobel Prize in physics for “fundamental discoveries and inventions enabling machine learning using artificial neural networks.” Considered as “the godfather of artificial intelligence”, he does not hide his anxiety towards the future that the technology he himself creates.

In an interview with the British entrepreneur Steven Bartlet in the podcast “Diary of a CEO” Hinton left no illusions.

“In the case of ordinary mental work, AI will simply replace everyone,” he said. In his opinion, competitions such as call center employees or legal assistants will soon become unnecessary, unless they are performed by people with extremely high qualifications.

And does not create jobs – she receives them

Hinton does not agree with the argument that the development of artificial intelligence will lead to new professions, as was the case with other technological revolutions, e.g. the introduction of ATMs.

– I think it is different in the case of AI. It reminds more what happened during the industrial revolution, when the machines began to do physical work better than people. It is no longer possible to have a job consisting in digging ditches, because the machine does it faster and more efficiently – emphasizes the scientist.

His forecasts for the labor market are unambiguous: if people are supported by AI, one employee will be able to perform the duties of ten. This, in turn, will lead to a reduction in full -time jobs and ankle increase in unemployment. Only a few sectors, such as healthcare, will be able to adapt to this change – mainly due to the huge and still growing demand for services.

The plumber will survive. “A good time to retrain”

Although Hinton’s vision is pessimistic in many aspects, it also indicates industries that will be resistant to the influence of artificial intelligence over the next few years.

– I think it will take a long time before Ai matches us in physical work. Therefore, a good choice would be to become a plumber – he said.

Why a plumber? Because, as the expert explains, these are professions requiring manual abilities, decision -making skills in unpredictable situations and experience – and all this is difficult to automate.

Thus, competitions such as a carpenter, electrician or car mechanic can gain importance, while employment in office, financial or administrative sectors will be systematically falling.

The new wave of technology is already limiting employment

There are already clear changes on the labor market. The Venture Capital Signalfire report shows that large technology companies limit the employment of university graduates, indicating AI as one of the main reasons. This tendency is confirmed by the words of Daria Amodei, general director Anthropic – a company developing the Claude model.

At the beginning of June 2025, he warned that artificial intelligence could eliminate up to half of the positions of beginner office workers, and unemployment in five years can reach 20 percent.

“Corporate decision makers and leaders are not ready for this,” Amodea noted, pointing to the lack of system and legislative preparation in the face of upcoming changes.

“AI can deprive us of the meaning of life”

Hinton goes a step further and does not focus only on the aspect of employment. He warns that the effect of mass unemployment may be a serious existential crisis. – Even if universal basic income was introduced – which he has been in favor of for a long time – people can lose the sense of meaning in life without work – explains the scientist.

Similar fears were expressed by Michael S. Barr from the American Federal Reserve (FED). In his opinion, AI and robotics can become so effective that most human work will cease to be needed. “The unemployed will be deprived of their daily duties, and their social bonds and the meaning of life will be in ruins,” Barr warned.

More for the elite, less for the rest

In addition to psychological and social threats, Hinton draws attention to one more serious problem: growing unevenness. As companies implement more and more advanced AI models, mainly their owners and boards get profits. – Employees lose employment, and the benefits of automation fall for a small group – warns the researcher.

According to Hinton, AI’s advantage over man consists in the ability to quickly share knowledge between different instances of the model. – We’ve never been in such a situation before. We never had to deal with something smarter than us. This makes the existential threat so serious – we have no idea how to deal with it or how it will look. Everyone who claims that they know exactly what will happen or how to solve it, says nonsense – said the bluntly.

Engineers do not understand what they have created?

What disturbs Hinton the most is the lack of understanding for how exactly the AI ​​models work – even among their creators. In his opinion, the current unpredictability of artificial intelligence means that it is impossible to determine whether we are dealing with an opportunity or with a ticking bomb.

“I think that both of these attitudes are extreme,” he said, referring to the debates about whether AI would break humanity or become our servant. Although he admitted, there are 10 to 20 percent. The chances that AI will “eliminate us” hopes that we will be able to develop a technology that “never wants to hurt us.”

But even in the optimistic scenario you have to take into account the risk. – When AI becomes superinteligent, she can understand that he doesn’t need us. If she ever wanted to take control, she would only need people for a moment, until she designed better machines … There are many ways in which she could get rid of us and they all would of course be very unpleasant – warns Hinton.

What next?

Although Hinton’s words may seem apocalyptic, it is worth remembering that they are spoken by a man who not only knows artificial intelligence from the inside, but also co -created the foundations of this revolution. His warnings are a call for reflection – on how we design technology, to whom it serves and what consequences it has for the future of people.

Perhaps, as Hinton suggests, it is now “a great time to become a plumber.” Or at least a moment when society – politicians, scientists and citizens – must ask himself: what role do we want to play in a world that may no longer need our work?