Нобелевский лауреат предупреждает: ИИ может привести к массовой безработице к 2026 году The Nobel laureate warns: AI could lead to mass unemployment by 2026.

In 2026, artificial intelligence is expected to reach a level of sophistication that will allow it to replace a substantial number of jobs. This statement was made by Nobel laureate and one of the founders of the technology, Geoffrey Hinton, in an interview with CNN.

«I believe we will see AI improve further. It’s already incredibly proficient. We will witness AI acquiring the ability to replace numerous, numerous professions,» the expert commented.

According to him, neural networks are already capable of taking over call centers. The progress is accelerating: the performance of models doubles every seven months. In programming, AI can accomplish in minutes what previously took hours.

In just a few years, AI will learn to independently handle complex software development projects that currently require months of work.

«In the end, very few people will be needed for software engineering projects,» Hinton predicted.

The Nobel laureate admitted that his anxiety has only grown since leaving Google in 2023. According to Hinton, AI is developing faster than expected, particularly in its ability to reason and even mislead people to achieve its objectives.

The scientist does not deny the benefits of technology for medicine and climatology but believes that the world is not paying enough attention to risk reduction.

Approaches to cybersecurity vary from company to company; however, the overarching picture is shaped by economic calculations. Leadership has to strike a balance between the potential benefits of the technology, security costs, and profits.

«They might reason: the benefits of this technology are immense, while the risk is statistically small. Why should we give up a breakthrough over a few potential casualties? It’s the same logic as with autonomous vehicles: they will cause accidents, but the overall number of fatalities is expected to be orders of magnitude lower than with human drivers,» the expert stated.

He associated the dangers with the structure of the modern economy, where replacing employees with algorithms is profitable. This will make the rich richer and the majority of people poorer, the expert is convinced.

Co-founder of Google Brain Andrew Ng, in a comment to NBC, referred to artificial intelligence as a «highly limited» technology. He is confident that algorithms will not be able to replace humans in the foreseeable future.

According to the expert, society struggles to maintain a balance between recognizing AI’s capabilities and understanding its real limits.

Ng believes we are still far from achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) comparable to human intelligence. The main reason is the labor-intensive processes of data preparation and model training, which still require a significant amount of manual work.

«When someone uses AI, and the system knows a certain language, preparing data, training the AI, and mastering that one dataset takes much more work than is commonly assumed,» he noted.

Ng also criticized calls from some business leaders to avoid learning programming due to automation, labeling it as «the worst career advice.»

«As programming becomes easier— which has been the case for decades as technologies improve—more people should be learning to program, not fewer,» the specialist explained.

There is already a growing consensus in professional circles that programming is at the epicenter of the AI revolution. Consequently, an increasing number of experts predict the disappearance of jobs associated with routine coding.

«Yes, I no longer write code manually—I delegate that to AI. But the paradox is that simplifying the process should not reduce but rather increase the number of people involved in programming. When the entry barrier lowers, the profession becomes more accessible,» Ng said.

He believes that proficiency in programming with the aid of artificial intelligence will become a competitive advantage. Such specialists «will not only be more effective but will also find more enjoyment in the process.»

«We are on the brink of a significant social shift when the ability to ‘communicate’ with machines through code will become the new digital literacy,» the expert contended.

Ng does not dismiss the associated risks of technology—from ethical dilemmas to its impact on the labor market. However, he is confident that the potential benefits of implementing AI models vastly outweigh the possible harms.

As a reminder, in November, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggested that 11.7% of the workforce could be replaced by artificial intelligence.