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As we enter the age of agentic A.I., Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang claims people won’t be out of work but instead responsible for overseeing their own groups of A.I. employees. “It’ll almost be like everybody gets promoted to being a manager,” the 28-year-old billionaire said during a recent podcast interview with Theo Von. Instead of completing tasks themselves, office employees will manage a “pod of 10 A.I. agents,” for example, to ensure they’re “doing it right and that they’re not making any mistakes,” he added.
Labor disruption has been one of the largest fears attached to A.I. Office and administrative jobs are especially at risk, according to a report from the Brookings Institute that also identified high-paying fields like STEM, business and finance as vulnerable to A.I. displacement. More than 30 percent of all workers could see at least half of their occupation’s tasks disrupted by the technology, said the study.
But Wang believes A.I.’s inroads across these industries will be offset by new employment opportunities. “As A.I. grows, there’s actually going to be tons of jobs created along the way and tons of opportunity for people to help improve A.I. systems, or control A.I. systems or overall be a part of the technology—not just disenfranchised by it,” he told Von.
What is Scale AI?
Scale AI will be responsible for some of these new jobs, according to Wang, who described his company as the “Uber for A.I.” The startup specializes in curating the much-needed data used by tech companies to fine tune their A.I. systems, hiring gig workers around the globe to correctly label information. “We have a community of people, a network of people, who help produce the data that goes into the system,” said Wang, who currently has an estimated net worth of $2 billion.
His strategy has gained the attention of major investors and clients along the way. Valued at $13.8 billion last year, Scale AI counts government agencies like the U.S. Department of Defense and OpenAI, Google (GOOGL) and Meta (META) amongst its customers.
But Scale AI’s efforts haven’t been without controversy. The startup has been hit with several lawsuits in recent months from its contractors. Besides facing allegations of wage theft, the company has been accused of subjecting workers to emotionally distressing content without proper safeguards.
Outside of Scale AI’s network of contractors, Wang claims the technology’s labor opportunities will largely include regulating A.I. itself. “Managing the A.I.’s and keeping watch over all the A.I. systems, that’s going to be another thing that we’re going to have to do,” Wang said, adding that jobs will be created to make sure the technology “doesn’t go out and do all the crazy things that we don’t want it do.”
Change in labor markets, such as the managerial shift he predicts A.I. will bring, are to be expected when technological advances arise. “When we started developing technology that started making farming a lot more efficient, all of a sudden people could do a lot of other things,” he noted. “It’s always the history of technology.”