OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

Move over LinkedIn, Altman's crew wants a piece of the action

For those worried that AI is going to disrupt their jobs, OpenAI has the solution – take its certification and use a newly announced jobs board to find a new role.

On Thursday, Fidji Simo, OpenAI's head of applications (and former CEO of Instacart), announced the plan for workers to advertise themselves to the company's customers for new jobs. She said that while AI is going to shake up the employment market, who better to solve that problem than the people doing the shaking?

"AI will be disruptive. Jobs will look different, companies will have to adapt, and all of us – from shift workers to CEOs – will have to learn how to work in new ways," she said in a blog post.

"At OpenAI, we can't eliminate that disruption. But what we can do is help more people become fluent in AI and connect them with companies that need their skills, to give people more economic opportunities."

Simo's plan is that workers should take courses in tech literacy at its OpenAI Academy and then advertise themselves on a forthcoming jobs platform. She said the company has already signed up some big names to the scheme, although maybe the choice of Walmart as an early adopter might not encourage IT admins in their future career paths.

OpenAI declined to comment further on the plans.

"At Walmart, we know the future of retail won't be defined by technology alone – it will be defined by people who know how to use it," Walmart US CEO John Furner said in a canned statement.

"By bringing AI training directly to our associates, we're putting the most powerful technology of our time in their hands – giving them the skills to rewrite the playbook and shape the future of retail."

The OpenAI Academy has had some big-name sign-ups, particularly the respected computer science teachers at Georgia Tech, but Simo says that the business is pushing hard to build on a White House plan to make AI a core skill for American workers – so long as the engines they use aren't too woke.

What Simo didn't mention directly is that getting into the jobs market would bring the company into competition with Microsoft, one of its biggest backers. LinkedIn is the primary Western jobs site and OpenAI setting up a competitor might get in the way of cordial relations.

Microsoft had no comment on the matter, but OpenAI appears to be only scooping the AI cream, and whatever else floats to the top of the market, on its proposed employment register. There's also the question of whether or not the skills OpenAI is shilling will have any validity in the actual jobs market.

Meanwhile, CEO Sam Altman and most of the tech glitterati attended a dinner hosted by First Lady Melania Trump to discuss AI last night. Elon Musk wasn't there, but insists he was invited. ®