Chairman of Coursera: AI companies inciting employment panic just to sell products, software industry still actively hiring

Scholar Andrew Ng refutes the narrative that artificial intelligence will lead to a wave of unemployment. He points out that software recruitment remains strong, and much of the panic rhetoric is just corporate interests packaging, with more job opportunities expected in the future.

On May 12, Coursera Chairman, well-known AI scholar, and founder of DeepLearning.AI Andrew Ng (Ng) posted on X and The Batch newsletter asserting that “AI will not trigger a jobpocalypse,” directly countering the mainstream AI unemployment panic narrative. According to Ng’s original tweet, this post received over 2,600 likes and was one of the most talked-about opinion articles in the AI field that week.

Ng’s core argument: software engineering recruitment remains strong, unemployment rate stays at 4.3%

Ng uses three sets of concrete data to counter the narrative that “AI will cause massive unemployment”:

• Software engineering is the industry most affected by AI tools (rapid progress in coding agents), but recruitment for software engineers remains vigorous
• Despite rapid AI advancements, the U.S. current unemployment rate remains at a healthy 4.3%
• From historical experience: the number of new jobs created by AI significantly exceeds the number of jobs it replaces, consistent with past technological waves

Ng straightforwardly states: “AI—like any other technology—does indeed impact jobs, but exaggerating stories of large-scale unemployment is irresponsible and harmful. We should put an end to such narratives.”

Why is the “AI unemployment” narrative so popular? Ng points out three incentives

Ng highlights three structural incentives explaining why this narrative continues to be amplified:

First, cutting-edge AI labs have strong incentives to promote the story that “AI can replace workers”—if a technology can replace many employees, it appears more valuable. In extreme cases, labs even push sci-fi scenarios like “AI takeover leading to human extinction.”

Second, SaaS software companies typically charge $100–$1,000 per user per year, but if AI can replace a $100,000-a-year employee or boost employee productivity by 50%, they can charge $10,000, which still seems reasonable. Pricing anchored on “employee salary” rather than “typical SaaS prices,” AI companies can charge more.

Third, companies have strong incentives to frame layoffs as “due to AI adoption”—telling stories that AI allows them to achieve higher productivity with fewer employees is more respectable than admitting they overhired during low-interest and government-stimulated periods like the pandemic.

Historical comparisons: nuclear energy, overpopulation fears, low-fat diets

Ng cites three historical cases to illustrate how societal narratives can persist for years but are actually disconnected from reality:

• Safety fears about nuclear power, leading to long-term underinvestment in nuclear energy
• 1960s “population bomb” panic, resulting in strict population control policies in many countries
• Concerns about dietary fats, leading governments to promote high-sugar diets for decades

Ng states: “Now mainstream media are beginning to question the jobpocalypse openly. I hope the influence of such stories will gradually fade, just like fears of AI causing human extinction.”

Ng’s reverse prediction: AI jobapalooza

Ng offers a counter-prediction to the “AI wave of unemployment”—the “AI jobapalooza”:

• A large number of good AI engineering jobs will emerge, and the overall job market outlook remains optimistic
• AI engineer roles will differ from traditional software engineering, with new jobs scattered across companies that are “non-traditional large employers”
• Skills required for non-AI roles will change due to AI, necessitating more people to develop “AI proficiency”

News observation: Ng’s timing coincides with this week’s developments, such as OpenAI launching Deployment Company, Anthropic and Blackstone forming a joint venture, JPMorgan and BlackRock pushing tokenized funds, accelerating AI commercialization. Ng does not deny that AI is reshaping work but opposes exaggerated predictions of “rapid mass unemployment.” For Taiwanese readers, Ng’s argument can be used to evaluate which mainstream panics might be amplified by vested interests and which pose real risks.

Follow-up events to watch include: whether mainstream media truly shifts toward questioning the jobpocalypse, responses from leaders of labs like Anthropic and OpenAI to Ng’s criticisms, and whether labor market data in late 2026 (especially tech sector recruitment figures) support Ng’s predictions.

• This article is reprinted with permission from: Chain News
• Original title: 《Andrew Ng：「AI will not trigger a wave of unemployment」、software industry hiring remains hot》
• Original author: Elponcrab