This is John Batchelor.

Conversation with Liz Peake, my colleague, about AI.

Will it take jobs?

Will it enhance jobs?

What is the effect of the AI as it sweeps through the Defense Department,

the government, private enterprise, the banks.

Liz gives answers.

It's early days, but it's not negative.

Here's Liz.

Well, it's a good question because I think people have been on the lookout for it.

Jay Powell has mentioned it a few times as something that might impact labor demand.

We're not seeing, I mean, you know, John, I don't deny that AI may take some jobs because that's kind of the point of it,

right, that every individual, no matter what kind of business you're in, can become more productive

because you're using AI. So if you're more productive, maybe you don't

need four of you, you just need three of you. But the reality is so far, we're what people

describing this as a low hire, low fire environment. And that could reflect the fact that

companies are waiting to see. They're, you know, the banks that have rolled out AI usage throughout their ranks, they're still

hiring junior analysts.

They're not hiring maybe quite as many as they used to, but they're not firing them because

they're not sure exactly how efficient that would be. And by the way, you have alerted me to the fact that

AI can make mistakes. So do you really want to present a company with a buyout plan, for example,

full of wrong numbers? You can't do that. So still the human element in oversight is pretty important.

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