‘Godfather of AI’ warns AI will cause ‘massive unemployment,’ widen wealth gap

Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, often called the “godfather of AI” for his pioneering work in machine learning, said in an interview with the Financial Times earlier this month that capitalism will drive artificial intelligence to replace workers, creating unemployment and inequality.

Hinton warned that the economic incentives of capitalism will push companies to adopt AI as a cost-cutting measure. He predicted that businesses will automate jobs across industries while sharply increasing profits. “What’s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,” Hinton said, describing the shift as a force that will generate “massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits.”

The Nobel Prize–winning computer scientist stressed that the underlying issue is not the technology itself but the system under which it is deployed. He argued that capitalist economies are designed to concentrate gains among the wealthy, leaving most workers worse off despite rising productivity. “It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That’s not AI’s fault, that is the capitalist system,” he said.

Hinton also questioned whether measures such as universal basic income could adequately address the effects of job losses caused by AI. He noted that while financial support might reduce hardship, it would not address the loss of dignity tied to work.