Jeff Bezos said he expects artificial intelligence to create a “labor shortage in the economy,” rejecting fears that the fast-evolving technology will put humans out of work as he launches a new venture aimed at making engineers more productive.
The billionaire founder of Amazon.com is co-leading a new AI business called Prometheus, which plans to build an “artificial general engineer” that can design and manufacture complex physical products such as a jet engine.
Bezos said in an interview that the company’s goal is “to empower engineers and make an invention easier and faster, so smaller teams can do much bigger things on much shorter time cycles.”
The Amazon and Blue Origin co-founder joins a group of longtime technology leaders that have jumped into the AI fray. Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong and Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev are all building new companies around the AI boom, among others.