Former Google ethicist warns AI could trigger global job market collapse by 2027

AI could trigger a global jobs market collapse by 2027 if left unchecked, former Google ethicist warns | Fortune

Tech companies are hurdling toward a goal of artificial general intelligence, or AGI -- technology that matches or exceeds human cognitive abilities. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have predicted the advent of human-level artificial intelligence could arrive as early as this year. Despite optimism about the technology among business leaders, AI experts say it could have catastrophic impacts if left uncontrolled. Ex-Google insider and AI expert Tristan Harris joined The Diary of a CEO podcast with host Steven Bartlett last November to discuss the pursuit of AGI, which he acknowledges most industry leaders believe could arrive by as soon as 2027. Harris said the mad dash to achieve human-level AI could create harmful incentives for unchecked growth, ultimately deteriorating safety, security, and economic well-being. "It's a kind of competitive logic that self-reinforces itself," Harris said. "It forces everyone to be incentivized to take the most shortcuts, to care the least about safety or security, to not care about how many jobs get disrupted, to not care about the well-being of regular people." Today, AI companies are operating with minimal regulation. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump rolled back Biden-era AI regulations aimed at ensuring safe and secure implementation that supported workers facing job disruptions. And in December, Trump signed an executive order preempting regulation of the technology, preventing a patchwork of state laws that the president said could "stymie innovation." Harris argued unfettered AI growth is not in the average American's best interest. "The default path is not in [the people's] interest," he said. "The default path is companies racing to release the most powerful, inscrutable, uncontrollable technology we've ever invented with the maximum incentive to cut corners on safety." One of Harris's main concerns about the current trajectory of AI development is the technology's looming impact on the job market. He said the ability of advanced AI to replace human work for free should be a greater concern than immigration taking people's jobs. "If you're worried about immigration taking jobs, you should be way more worried about AI," Harris said. "It's like a flood of millions of new digital immigrants that are Nobel Prize-level capability, work at superhuman speed, and will work for less than minimum wage." Early research shows the burgeoning impact of AI on jobs. A recent study by Stanford University evaluating payroll data showed AI is causing a 13% decline in jobs for early-career workers. Rapid AI implementation has also triggered job cuts, contributing to about 55,000 layoffs in 2025, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas. Last year, Microsoft slashed 9,000 jobs, citing a desire to implement AI. And Salesforce cut 4,000 customer service jobs in an AI push. "AI is like another version of NAFTA. It's like NAFTA 2.0," Harris said of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the trade deal between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that critics, including Trump, argue hurt the U.S. job market. "Except instead of China appearing on the world stage who will do the manufacturing labor for cheap, suddenly this country of geniuses in a data center created by AI appears on the world stage, and it will do all of the cognitive labor in the economy for less than minimum wage." Harris predicts the current unstructured AI buildout could hinder growth "unless there's a massive political backlash because people recognize that this issue will dominate every other issue," he said during the interview. The early rumblings of that fallout have already bubbled to the surface in some states. Despite Trump's executive order, 26 states have enacted some degree of AI legislation, according to law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, with states such as New York and California proposing stringent requirements around safety and data-use transparency. Harris said swift regulation is pressing because as AI takes over jobs, human political power could become watered down as human workers grow less valuable economically. "This is the last moment that human political power will matter," he said. "Does the state need humans anymore? Their GDP is coming in almost entirely from the AI companies. So suddenly, this political class, this political power base, they become the useless class."

Fear Grows That AI Is Permanently Eliminating Jobs

In 2026, the grim comedy of late capitalism seems to have found a perfect punchline: workers laid off in a dismal job market are now being hired to train AI systems meant to replace them altogether. If a great AI replacement ever comes to pass, the scale of potential displacement is massive. MIT researchers recently calculated that today's AI systems could already automate tasks performed by more than 20 million American workers, or about 11.7 percent of the entire US labor force. And things are looking tangibly grim: in January, the total number of job cuts exceeded even 2009, when the country was still roiling from the great recession. That being the case, it's no surprise that workers are worried -- and not just about their immediate employment prospects. The anxiety is evolving into something deeper, the result of AI's seemingly rapidly expanding intelligence. Back in August, a poll conducted by Reuters and Ipsos showed that 71 percent of American respondents are concerned that AI will put "too many people out of work permanently." Though there was little evidence AI was causing mass unemployment at the time, a slew of layoffs in early 2026 have thrust the possibility of AI-fueled labor dystopia back into the spotlight. Those anxieties aren't just felt by workers or labor leaders. A massive list calling for a "prohibition" on the development of superintelligence is now nearing 135,000 signatures online. Its endorsers run the gamut from tech luminaries like Geoffrey Hinton and Steve Wozniak to conservative commentators like Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck to national security operatives like Mike Mullen and Susan Rice. Even celebrity figures like Prince Harry are on board. "The future of AI should serve humanity, not replace it," the Duke of Sussex commented under his signature. "The true test of progress will be not how fast we move, but how wisely we steer." The list also includes members from both sides of the political aisle in the US. In an interview with the Atlantic, Bannon explained why he put his name on the list alongside prominent Democratic lawmakers like Gary Ackerman and Joe Crowley -- or, as he called them, "lefties that would rather spit on the floor than say Steve Bannon is with them on anything." "We're in a situation where people on the spectrum that are not, quite frankly, total adults... are making decisions for the species," Bannon said, with his usual delicacy and eloquence. "Not for the country. For the species. Once we hit this inflection point, there's no coming back. That's why it's got to be stopped, and we may have to take extreme measures."