Scott Detrow

All of a sudden, everybody is freaking out about AI job loss.

We'll unpack whether and how you should be worried.

From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.

It's Consider This from NPR.

AI CEOs talk a lot about the potential of AI to cure diseases, generate enormous wealth, solve some of humanity's most vexing problems.

But as you heard earlier, they're also surprisingly direct in talking about the potential downsides.

And a big one, one that we're all of a sudden hearing a lot more about, is what it could mean for our jobs.

It is easy to panic when you start reading about computers replacing humans.

So we wanted some perspective from people who are watching AI's impact on the economy closely.

I called up Kelsey Piper, a staff writer at The Argument, and Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Yale Budget Lab, to get a sense of this AI moment and some possible AI futures.

Let's start with that.

It feels like in the past few weeks, this conversation about AI job loss has bubbled out of the tech world and into the mainstream.

I mean, I, for one, have gotten like a half dozen texts from freaked out friends sending stuff around like, what's going on here?

Martha, why do you think this is happening right now?

That does create some anxiety.

Kelsey, you have been covering AI since ChatGPT was a twinkle in Sam Altman's eye.

Can you explain to us

Some specific examples of what these models can do now that they couldn't do a year ago, six months ago.

So this is a specific thing that gets better and better and more and more autonomous and that is a real trend that is happening.

Okay.