Nobel Prize winning economist Daron Acemoglu has warned that US unemployment could triple over the next decade in a worst-case scenario if the country continues on its path of artificial intelligence adoption if policymakers and businesses do nothing.
Speaking to CBS News' 60 Minutes, Acemoglu said that on the current trajectory, AI transformation is occurring unusually quickly and simultaneously across many sectors.
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Acemoglu compared today's AI transition with the Industrial Revolution. According to him, the first phase of the Industrial Revolution unfolded roughly over 80 years, whereas the current AI transformation is happening in one or two years and across many sectors simultaneously.
His concern is not simply that machines are becoming more capable. It is the speed and breadth of automation, which could leave workers with less time to adapt.
Acemoglu told CBS that there are still things humans can do today that AI and robots cannot do. When asked whether fundamentally human activities would remain beyond machines' capabilities, he said, "today, absolutely," while adding that he does not know what AI will be capable of in 15 years.
One of the more significant exchanges in the interview concerned the idea that displaced workers could simply find new jobs in training AI systems. CBS highlighted Mercor, a company that connects AI companies with human experts who help train AI models. Mercor had assembled a network of more than 100,000 freelancers, including professionals such as doctors, winemakers and music producers. Mercor CEO Brendan Foody argued that this represents a new category of work.
But Acemoglu rejected the idea that AI training jobs would be sufficient to absorb workers displaced by automation. His reasoning was that the number of people employed to train AI would be small compared to the number of people whose work could potentially be replaced.
"The number of people they're employing in these positions is small relative to the number of people who will be replaced," he said.
CBS reported that overall unemployment remains generally steady, but research is showing weaker hiring and declining wages in some occupations that are highly exposed to AI, including software development. The report stated that workers in their 20s have been particularly affected in these AI exposed occupations.
Clara Shih, who previously oversaw major AI divisions at Salesforce and Meta, told CBS that tasks traditionally assigned to younger employees, such as market research and preparing initial drafts, are increasingly being performed effectively by AI. She said that AI could eventually affect workers across professions and warned that the consequences of job losses could extend beyond employment to people's sense of self-worth and communities.
Despite his warning, Acemoglu explicitly said that he is very cautious about saying that society should reject technology. He told CBS that companies could design AI to make workers better rather than making them expendable, while governments could use taxation and other policies to encourage companies to retain human workers.
His position is consistent with his wider research on what he calls "pro-worker AI", which focuses on using technology to expand workers' capabilities rather than simply automating their jobs.
A 2026 research paper co-authored by Acemoglu, economist David Autor and Nobel laureate Simon Johnson, argues that AI can be developed as a collaborator that extends human expertise, creates new tasks and increases workers' capabilities.
The researchers also identify incentives, taxation and other policy measures that could encourage greater investment in technologies designed to complement workers rather than replace them.
Acemoglu told CBS that the future of AI and employment remains subject to human choices, and argued that the uncertainty makes it important to debate how the technology should be developed and deployed.
This latest warning comes as businesses increasingly integrate AI into their operations, intensifying the debate over whether the technology will ultimately create more opportunities than the jobs it displaces.
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