“The Daily Show” host mocked some of Silicon Valley’s most influential AI leaders on Monday’s episode, sharing clips of OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai among others.
Fears the tech might replace some jobs are nothing new, but tech leaders have been trying to assure the public their products function as productivity-boosting “assistants.”
Stewart pointed out that society had been through massive technological upheavals before, most of which had promised “a utopian life without drudgery.”
“But the reality is, they come for our jobs,” he added, asking for assurances that new AI products wouldn’t remove the need for humans.
Stewart accused tech leaders of letting the “real truth slip out every now and again,” following the quip with a video of Nadella saying AI would cause “overall displacement in the labor market.”
The host also mocked the suggestion AI is creating new jobs, such as prompt engineers, pointing out that the role could be easily automated.
Later in the show, Stewart said he’d wanted to do the segment on Apple TV+ show, “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” but Apple had opposed it.
“Like, what is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?” he asked Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, whom he said Apple had asked him not to interview about AI.
Stewart has previously discussed the abrupt cancellation of “The Problem,” telling CBS in October that Apple didn’t want him to say things that might get him into “trouble.”
The presenter returned to “The Daily Show” in February to host on Mondays in 2024 after departing in 2015.
Representatives for Stewart did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
