Salesforce (CRM) co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff acknowledges there will be a lot of good created from generative AI, but perhaps some not-so-good things need to be kept in mind and discussed with global leaders.
"I think AI has to be almost a human right," Benioff said on Yahoo Finance Live Wednesday at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. "I've actually been saying ... for decades that AI could be a creator of inequality. It could also be a creator of equality."
At this year's annual WEF gathering of top leaders, the upsides — and downsides — of AI has been a hot topic. Most of the debate has been centered around AI's impact on job markets and the potential for greater inequality.
About 40% of global employment is exposed to AI, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In advanced economies, roughly 60% of jobs are exposed to AI due to the prevalence of "cognitive task" oriented jobs.
Overall exposure is 40% in emerging markets and 26% in low-income countries, the IMF said.
Although many emerging markets and developing economies may experience less immediate AI-related disruption, the IMF reasons they are also ready to capitalize on AI's advantages. This could "exacerbate" the "digital divide" and "cross-country income disparity," the study concluded.
IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told Yahoo Finance Live that older workers could see an outsized impact from AI's widespread adoption and may be in need of a better social safety net.
"I think that AI is going to change a lot of what we do. I think there's going to be a lot of displacement of some people's jobs that are like with almost any technology that comes out," Cloudflare (NET) co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince told Yahoo Finance Live.
Other big-name leaders have stopped short of proclaiming doom and gloom spurred on by AI, however.
"I have found it's a real productivity increase," Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in an exclusive Yahoo Finance Live interview in Davos, Switzerland, on Monday.
Added Gates: "Likewise, for coders, you're seeing 40%, 50% productivity improvements which means you can get programs [done] sooner. You can make them higher quality and make them better. So mostly what we'll see is that the productivity of white-collar [workers] will go up."
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Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on Twitter/X @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Tips on deals, mergers, activist situations, or anything else? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
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