- AMD CEO Lisa Su doesn’t believe AI is out to cause massive job losses, but admits anxiety around the technology’s innovation is a natural feeling. “That’s the point,” she said after being pointed out that tech is driving people up the wall. As fellow tech leaders like Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and OpenAI’s Sam Altman express similar positive attitudes about AI’s future, others warn against overhyping a “golden era.”
Keeping pace with AI can feel like an endless race. Every week brings a new unicorn, a new product, and a fresh set of CEO prophecies about how the technology will reshape work.
But according to Lisa Su, CEO of the nearly $300 billion semiconductor company AMD, there’s no need to get bogged down—it’s all part of the innovation process.
“I think that’s the point,” Su told Wired when asked about AI’s dizzying pace. “When technology is good enough, you don’t have to think about it. Today, you still have to think…”
The internet followed a similar trajectory. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, it took a conscious effort to use technology and be more productive. Now, it’s almost second nature and woven seamlessly into everyday life.
That’s why the 55-year-old argued that the newest technology—AI—should not be judged by what it is today but by where it’s headed.
AMD’s CEO would even ‘bet on humanity being OK’
While some leaders—like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Ford CEO Jim Farley—warn that AI could hollow out Gen Z’s entry-level jobs, Su remains unconvinced.
“I don’t believe in these cases where you’re not going to need lots and lots of people,” Su said. “Because in the end, people are the judge of what truth is. We’re still hiring more and more engineers, because they’re the final arbiters of our engineering.”
For now, AI mostly clears away mundane tasks. It will become “great,” in Su’s view, when it starts cracking real, hard problems—such as meaningful advances in healthcare, not just productivity tweaks.
Will humanity be able to keep up? Su pointed out to Wired that the same fear was expressed during the industrial revolution—and the world managed to adapt.
“I don’t know. I would bet on humanity being OK.”
Fortune reached out to AMD for comment.
Tech leaders are divided on how AI will impact the workforce—and the world
While the pace of AI can feel like it’s headed down a doomsday scenario, the likes of “The Terminator,” Su isn’t alone in leveling that the world isn’t in peril.
In fact, Su’s distant relative—and fellow chips competitor—Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is bullish that humanity will always come up with new ideas and the world will keep turning.
“I don’t know why AI companies are trying to scare us. We should advance the technology safely just as we advance cars safely. … But scaring people goes too far,” Huang said to Axios.
Moreover, OpenAI Sam Altman expressed last week that being a young person today must feel like you’re the “luckiest kid in all of history,” considering the new era that AI will bring to the world.
However, this hope for a “golden era” of humanity is more fiction than fact, according to Mo Gawdat, the former chief business officer for GoogleX. Promises that AI will create more new jobs is “100% crap,” he said—and CEOs themselves may need to watch their back.
“CEOs are celebrating that they can now get rid of people and have productivity gains and cost reductions because AI can do that job. The one thing they don’t think of is AI will replace them too,” Gawdat said on The Diary of a CEO podcast.
“AGI is going to be better at everything than humans, including being a CEO. You really have to imagine that there will be a time where most incompetent CEOs will be replaced.”
