Why AI Is Making Tech Leaders Depressed

As

artificial intelligence has become a part of our lives, several tech leaders like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, have appreciated the changes. However, others might not be happy about the AI boom. Months after suggesting that AI is overhyped, Citadel founder Ken Griffin has now accepted that it is advancing so fast that it has left him depressed and worried about the future of society.Speaking during a conversation at Stanford Business School earlier this month, he admitted that recent AI developments have shocked him. He said, “AI is profoundly more powerful than it was just nine months ago.”

From AI Sceptic To Believer

The billionaire has revealed that the pace of change has hit him harder than he actually ever expected. He added, “I went home one Friday actually fairly depressed by this, because you could just see how this was going to have such a dramatic impact on society.”His comments show how he has now changed his previous stance on AI. Earlier this year, the tech mogul reportedly called AI ‘garbage’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Moreover, he iterated last year that AI was majorly a productivity tool instead of being a revolutionary tech. “AI saves some time. It's a productivity enhancement tool. It's nice, I don't think it's going to revolutionise most of what we do in finance,” said Griffin in 2025. Griffin now thinks that AI has crossed a crucial turning point. “For the first time, AI is real,” he stated.

AI Doing Work Once Reserved For Experts

One of the major reasons why Griffin changed his stance is that AI grew rapidly now handling highly specialised tasks. As per him, Citadel has already seen AI systems complete work that would usually need teams of highlight trained professionals working for weeks. He explained, "To be blunt, work that we would usually do with people with masters and PhDs in finance over the course of weeks or months, being done by AI agents over the course of hours or days.” Griffin highlighted that ordinary office jobs are not only affected. Rather, he argues that mid-tier and white-collar jobs will be impacted by being automated by agentic AI.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared Griffin’s clip on X and wrote, “Where will AI be in 1, 2 or 3 years?” Several tech leaders have also raised alarms about the impact of AI on jobs. Dario Amodei and Mustafa Suleyman have both previously suggested that AI could eventually replace a large number of white-collar roles.What lies ahead is how AI dramatically impacts the job markets. Whether it will create more jobs or take the important jobs, that has to leave on time. However, some of the notable sceptics have started to rethink the future shaped by the technology.