AI Requires a Plan to Retrain Workers

[marcus]

Title : Jamie Dimon Says AI Will Eliminate Jobs, 'It Is What It Is' — But Warns Cutting $150,000 Truck Driving Jobs To $25K A Year Would Bring 'Civil Unrest'
By Jeannine Mancini , October 2026

AI is going to change the job market, whether people are ready for it or not ... But Dimon (JPMorgan Chase CEO) warned that the speed of that transition could matter just as much as the technology itself...

He also warned that AI could move "too fast for society." If that happens, he said, government and businesses may need to work together to retrain workers, help people relocate and provide income assistance during the transition.

Dimon pointed to Trade Adjustment Assistance, a federal program designed to help workers who lose their jobs because of trade, ... the program was "incredibly poorly done" in the U.S. and "did not work." This time, he said, the goal should be to have a plan that actually works ...

Dimon then offered a hypothetical example ... There are 2 million commercial trucks in the U.S., Dimon said, and AI could eventually make it possible to operate trucks with the push of a button ... But that doesn't mean the transition should happen overnight.

"And should you do it all at once if 2 million people go from driving a truck making $150,000 a year to a next job that might be $25,000?" Dimon asked. "No. You'll have civil unrest ...

 

[Balifrog]

Changes have always existed.
France used to be mainly an agricultural society, then came the industrial revolution and people migrated massively to work in the mines, heavy steel industry, car factories....
Then computers and internet arrived, plenty new, previously not existing jobs were created.
Now we face just another change with A.I.
Just go with the flow....
No choice anyway !

 

[pantaiema]

Jamie Dimon is a brilliant banker, but he's definitely not a labour economist. Even top guys like him get it wrong sometimes. Remember back in 2022 when he told everyone to brace for an economic hurricane in the near future? Now 2026, It that never really happened like he claimed.

People also freak out about the idea of truck driver salaries dropping from $150k down to $25k warning it would cause 'civil unrest.' But realistically, if transport costs drop, those savings usually just get passed on to us, the consumers, in the form of cheaper goods and the cost of moving them around as part of the distribution.

Similarly, replacing train drivers with AI is even batter and way easier to pull off than self-driving trucks. When it happens, it's going to be a huge win for everyday consumers. Right now, train operators make way more than a lot of other professions, even though the job doesn't require the years of specialised training, intelligent that doctors or engineers go through. Plus, in a lot of places, they can just go on strike and basically hold an entire city hostage.

Cutting those high logistics salaries such as truck and train drivers are arguably a good thing for society overall since their crucial job for transporting people, goods everywhere. Train driver in particular, it is not that difficult to train people to do that job. Let alone the training is now focusing on machine that could work 24/7/365.

As for civil unrest? That's pretty unlikely just from wages dropping in one industry. People usually only take to the streets when the basic cost of living becomes totally unaffordable and they can't buy everyday necessities. Also, if you look at history, industrial revolutions; machines, automatisations taking over jobs haven't actually caused long-term mass unemployment. In fact it increases productivity and making people becoming more prosperous. Real, structural unemployment usually comes from recession, depression, much bigger disasters things like wars, natural catastrophes, draughts, floods, or major societal breakdowns, not from everyday not industrial revolution. Just compare the figure of economic indicators and unemployment rate during the WW1, WW2 and the economy during the industrial revolution.