Even Dimon – a staunch supporter of established career norms such as hard work, being prepared for anything and working in an office – says that future generations of workers could work one and a half days less per week thanks to AI.

In addition to the working week shrinking from five to three and a half days a week, Dimon also predicts that the workforce could live to be a hundred years old in the future.

Thousands of people at America’s largest bank are already using the technology, Dimon told Bloomberg TV, adding that artificial intelligence is a “living, breathing thing” that will change over history.

The technology can be used by JPMorgan for a wide range of areas – errors, trading, research and hedging to name a few – arguably illustrating the fear that AI will take the jobs of human counterparts.

Goldman Sachs predicts that around 300 million jobs will be lost to the technology, with around a quarter of the US workforce fearing they will lose their role to artificial intelligence in the future.

But the advancement of technology is also something that societies have struggled with before, Dimon pointed out, adding that with AI and large language models, there is also enormous opportunity to improve living standards.

“People need to take a deep breath,” Dimon said. “Technology has always replaced jobs. Your kids will live to be a hundred years old and not have cancer anymore thanks to technology, and literally they will probably have to work three and a half days a week.”

Employees could cut back on their working hours, thanks to technology used to automate some of their activities, McKinsey found in a report published last year.

The report also shows that generative AI and other emerging technologies have the potential to automate the tasks that currently consume 60% to 70% of workers’ time – costing between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion annually adds to the global economy.

And while companies are still grappling with the speed at which AI will transform their industries, arguments are already being made for reducing the number of days in the current work week.

A British survey of 61 organizations conducted by the University of Cambridge found that the number of sick days fell by 65% ​​during a four-day working week, while 71% of employees said they experienced less burnout. As a result, 92% of companies in the program said they would have a three-day weekend.

However, Dimon and McKinsey are not the first economic leaders to predict that technology will lead to a shorter work week. In a 1930 essay entitled “Economic Opportunities for Our Grandchildren,” economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandchildren’s generation would work 15 hours a week because of increased productivity. The current UK average of Keynes is 36.4 hours.

‘There are negative points’

Like many other thought leaders, Dimon is aware that the technology could prove a powerful weapon if it falls into the wrong hands.

Echoing the concerns of people like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Dimon said: “Technology has done incredible things for humanity, but you know, planes crash, pharmaceuticals are misused – there are negatives too .

“This, in my opinion, the biggest negative is that AI is used by bad people to do bad things. Think of cyber warfare.”

Like Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Dimon also says he hopes to see guardrails introduced to the industry, although he acknowledges this could take some time to come to fruition because the technology is relatively new.

The billionaire boss of the New York-based bank also noted that some employees’ lives will be disrupted by technology taking over their roles. In the case of JPMorgan Chase, at least, Dimon said he hopes to “redeploy” any staff pushed out of jobs by AI.

He drew comparisons to JPMorgan’s acquisition of First Republic in May 2023, when the latter bank fell victim to a wave of banking instability before agreeing to a $10 billion deal.

“At First Republic we have offered jobs to 90% of the people. They accepted it, but we also told them that some of those jobs are transient. But we hire 30,000 people a year, so we expect that if we can do that, we can get them a job somewhere locally in another industry or another position,” Dimon explains. “We will do that for every disruption that happens as a result of AI.”

A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on October 3, 2023.