"GPT-5 Smarter Than Me": Sam Altman Warns AI Could Replace 40% Jobs By 2030

Artificial intelligence could transform the global workforce sooner than expected and may replace up to 40 per cent of jobs, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has warned. AI will be much more advanced by 2030 and may even achieve superintelligence by then, he added.

Speaking at the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network in Berlin, Altman said, "Around 1 per cent of tasks currently performed by humans are already being handled by AI. Over the next few years, 30 to 40 per cent of tasks could be done by AI."

Altman also pointed out that jobs have always evolved with time. "In 30 years, jobs change all the time. If you think about the jobs we did three decades ago, many of them may no longer exist today or new jobs that were kind of difficult to imagine years ago are now commonplace today.

The 40-year-old said that he came across a statistic suggesting that every 75 years, half the jobs in society undergo change. He, however, believes this transformation will now happen much faster. "GPT-5 is already smarter than me and many others," he said.

Altman explained that while such progress would be a major milestone for science and technology, it would also come with risks. On one hand, these advanced AI systems could lead to new discoveries and solutions that humans alone could never achieve, he said.

On the other hand, he warned that the same breakthroughs could cause mass layoffs, as AI may take over a large share of tasks currently done by humans. "By the end of this decade, if we don't have extraordinarily capable models that do things humans cannot, I'd be very surprised," he said.

Last week, on The Tucker Carlson Show, Altman pointed to programming and customer service as among the first areas likely to be replaced by AI. He explained which roles could be replaced by AI and which will remain uniquely human. 

"A job that I feel way less certain about what the future looks like for is computer programmers. A job that I'm confident will not be that impacted is, like, nurses," he said.