Sam Altman on AI and jobs: Who’s safe and who’s at risk

Dubai: OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has weighed in on one of the most pressing questions of the digital age: will Artificial Intelligence (AI) take our jobs? Speaking in a wide-ranging interview on the Tucker Carlson Show, Altman offered candid insights on the industries most at risk and the ones he believes will remain firmly in human hands.

Altman did not shy away from predicting job losses in certain areas. He said he was “confident” that AI would replace many customer support roles currently handled by people over the phone or computer.

“I'm confident that a lot of current customer support that happens over a phone or computer, those people will lose their jobs, and that will be better done by an AI,” he said during the podcast.

The OpenAI chief was less certain when it came to computer programmers. While some fear coding jobs could vanish, Altman argued that AI tools have made developers more productive and potentially more valuable.

“What it means to be a computer programmer today is very different than what it meant two years ago,” he explained. “You're able to use these AI tools to just be hugely more productive, but it's still a person there... and it turns out that the world wanted so much more software than the world previously had capacity to create.”

Altman singled out nursing as a profession that will be difficult to automate. Despite advances in robotics and AI, he believes the human connection in healthcare is irreplaceable.

“A job that I'm confident will not be that impacted is like nurses,” he said. “I think people really want the deep human connection with a person in that time and no matter how good the advice of the AI is... you will really want that.”

Altman also reflected on the broader shift in the labour market. Historically, about half of all jobs have significantly changed every 75 years. He suggested AI may accelerate that cycle dramatically.

“My controversial take would be that this is going to be like a punctuated equilibrium moment where a lot of that will happen in a short period of time,” he said.

Yet, he stressed that new kinds of work will emerge, many of which are hard to imagine today. He pointed to the rise of tools like ChatGPT, which would have been inconceivable two decades ago.

Experts argue that adaptation will be critical to navigating this disruption. That means education systems and employers will need to help workers reskill, retrain and integrate AI into their daily roles.

In the UAE, the government has already announced AI into public school curricula for the 2025–2026 academic year. Students from kindergarten through Grade 12 will learn about AI concepts, practical applications and the ethical challenges the technology raises.

Separately, a joint report from Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) and the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) identified which professions are most secure in an AI-driven world. It listed AI and machine learning specialists, robotics engineers, nurses, teachers and doctors as safe bets.

By contrast, it warned that customer support agents, telemarketers and bank tellers face higher risk of displacement, echoing Altman’s own concerns.