Artificial Intelligence could wipe out 99% of jobs by 2030, warns leading expert
As AI adoption accelerates, experts are urging govts and industries to acknowledge threat and prepare for unprecedented disruptions in job market
PTC Web Desk: Artificial intelligence (AI) could render 99% of the global workforce jobless by the end of this decade, cautioned Roman Yampolskiy, a computer science professor at the University of Louisville and a noted voice on AI safety. His stark prediction comes as businesses worldwide are increasingly adopting AI tools to reduce costs and maximise efficiency.
Speaking at a podcast, Yampolskiy said even highly skilled roles, such as coding and prompt engineering, would not survive the looming automation wave. He warned that once artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a system capable of human-like reasoning—emerges, possibly by 2027, the global labour market could collapse within three years.
“We may be looking at unemployment levels as high as 99%, not just the 10% we consider alarming today,” he remarked. According to him, digital tasks will be the first to be automated, followed by physical labour as humanoid robots become more advanced. “Why would anyone hire a person if a $20 subscription or a free AI model can do the same job?” he questioned.
Yampolskiy stressed that jobs provide income, purpose, and social structure, and societies would need to replicate these functions at scale if employment disappears. “There is no plan B—retraining won’t help because all jobs will eventually be automated,” he added.
Other tech leaders have echoed similar concerns. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently projected that half of entry-level white-collar positions could vanish within five years due to AI. Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer at Google X, has also warned that AI could dismantle white-collar industries as early as 2027, affecting everyone from software engineers to CEOs.