The One Industry Where AI Will Not Threaten Your Job, Says ‘Godfather of AI’
Written by
Jacob Wade
Edited by
Brendan McGinley
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AI is coming for everyone’s jobs.
At least, that’s how it feels right now. With daily headlines about AI disrupting major industries, and the lightning-quick pace at which AI continues to evolve, it seems like no one’s job is safe.
But the “Godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, recently shared one job industry that he thinks is safe from the rise of AI. We’ll break down the details of this industry, Hinton’s comments on why he believes it is safe from AI and what this means for Americans’ job prospects.
AI Will Disrupt Almost Every Industry
Hinton has warned in the past that AI will affect most job industries, and reiterated this stance in a recent interview with The Financial Times.
“What’s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,” Hinton said. “It’s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That’s not AI’s fault, that is the capitalist system.”
Hinton warns that the wealth gap in the United States is going to increase, with middle- and low-income workers bearing the brunt of the impact of AI in most industries. Jobs will be automated away with AI, and what’s left will be highly skilled positions and ownership opportunities that could make the rich even richer.
Healthcare Is Protected From AI … For Now
In a June interview on The Diary of a CEO YouTube channel, Hinton stated that healthcare is the one industry that will remain relatively immune to large-scale job losses from AI.
There are two main reasons for this:
High demand
Hinton argues there’s essentially no upper bound on how much healthcare people will want and consume, especially if cost barriers are lowered:
“If you could make doctors five times as efficient, we could all have five times as much healthcare for the same price, and that would be great. There’s almost no limit to how much healthcare people can absorb,” said Hinton.
Human judgment
Medical care involves not just pattern matching (lab results, imaging, etc.), but also nuanced judgment, patient interaction, ethics, adaptation to new conditions and unpredictable conditions. Hinton suggests these features make full automation far harder in healthcare than other industries.
While healthcare does have quite a bit of technology involved, Hinton believes humans will still be needed in most major healthcare roles.
How AI Might Change Healthcare Jobs
While Hinton stated that humans are still needed in healthcare positions, he didn’t dismiss the idea of AI coming for healthcare jobs in other ways. Here are a few areas of healthcare where the technology can still creep in:
Diagnostic Assistance
AI tools can help with interpreting scans (X-rays, MRIs), flagging anomalies, suggesting different diagnoses or triaging patients via chatbots or symptom checkers. These applications can reduce the time doctors spend on routine interpretation, shifting their role toward verification, oversight and complex decision-making.
Administrative Tasks
A lot of clinician time is devoted to paperwork, insurance coding, documentation, ordering tests, billing, referrals, etc. AI systems could streamline or partially automate many of these “back office” tasks, reducing administrative load but also possibly substituting some support staff roles.
Personalized Analytics
AI models may help predict disease onset or tailor drug regimens, shifting how prevention and chronic care are managed. This may impact frontline clinicians most, but increase demand for alternative roles for data scientists, AI auditors and oversight positions.
Remote Monitoring & Telehealth
Wearables, at-home monitoring sensors and remote diagnostics combined with AI may allow healthcare providers to automate monitoring and deliver instant diagnoses for patients. This changes the pattern of in-person visits and may reduce some direct patient time, potentially allowing doctors and providers to see more patients. This might change how many doctors are needed to run a clinic, and could disrupt some jobs.
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