JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is shaking off doomsday predictions about what AI means for humanity—instead laying out how he sees the technology vastly improving businesses and the work-life balance of their employees.
Even Dimon—a fierce advocate of long-established career norms such as working hard, being prepared for anything and working in the office—says future generations of employees could work a day and a half less every week, thanks to AI.
As well as the working week shrinking from five to three and a half days a week, Dimon also predicts that staff in the future could live to 100 years of age.
Thousands of people at America’s biggest bank are already using the technology, Dimon told Bloomberg TV, adding that artificial intelligence is a “living breathing thing” that will shift over the course of history.
The technology may be utilized by JPMorgan for a vast range of areas—errors, trading, research, and hedging to name a few—arguably illustrating fears that AI will take the jobs of human counterparts.
Goldman Sachs predicts that approximately 300 million jobs will be lost to the technology, with around a quarter of the American workforce fearing in the future they will lose their roles to artificial intelligence.
But the advance of technology is also something societies have grappled with before, Dimon pointed out, adding that with AI and large language models there are also huge opportunities to improve living standards.
“People have to take a deep breath,” Dimon said. “Technology has always replaced jobs. Your children are going to live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology, and literally they’ll probably be working three and a half days a week.”
Employees could scale back on their working hours, thanks to the technology being used to automate some of their activities, McKinsey found in a report published last year.
The report also found that generative AI and other emerging technologies have the potential to automate the tasks which take up 60% to 70% of employees’ time at the moment—adding between $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion to the global economy every year.
And while businesses are still grappling with how quickly AI will transform their sector, arguments are already being made to reduce the number of days in the current working week.
A British study of 61 organizations, carried out by the University of Cambridge, saw a 65% reduction in sick days during a four-day working week, while 71% of employees said they had reduced levels of burnout. As a result, 92% of the companies on the program said they’d be keeping a three-day weekend.
