Obama says AI flipped from 90% human-taught to 50/50 in under a year — the six-figure jobs he says go first

Obama says AI flipped from 90% human-taught to 50/50 in under a year — the six-figure jobs he says go first

Sam Bourgi

Tue, September 22, 2026 at 6:30 PM GMT+3 5 min read

A six-figure salary and years of specialized training may offer little protection from artificial intelligence, with former President Barack Obama warning that AI is quickly becoming capable of doing work now performed by lawyers, accountants and other skilled professionals.

In a Sept. 18 conversation at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, Obama tied the risk to "recursive learning," which he described as AI models increasingly learning without relying on humans to supply the answers.

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About a year ago, Obama estimated, humans were responsible for roughly 90% of what AI models learned, with the models filling in another 5% to 10% themselves. In less than a year, and perhaps less than six months, he said that split has moved to roughly 50/50.

If the trend continues, Obama said the ratio could eventually flip to 90% machine learning and 10% human input, allowing AI capabilities to improve much faster, but perhaps at the expense of some highly skilled jobs.

He singled out law firms, which traditionally employ large numbers of junior associates to handle research, drafting and document review, with many earning six-figure salaries.

"If you are investing in AI at a law firm, and they're pretty expensive, the reason you're making that investment is because it will allow you to do things without those associates," Obama said.

Obama said accountants could face a similar threat from agentic AI, a newer form of the technology that can take instructions and then carry out tasks on its own. Instead of simply answering a question or generating text, these systems can handle work now performed by lawyers, accountants and other professionals.

"The economic disruptions that will come at this speed, I think, are going to be profound as well," he cautioned, while adding that there's clearly a "misalignment between what our society needs and the commercial imperatives that these companies are facing," raising the possibility that what makes economic sense for businesses may come at a cost to workers.

AI may already be changing who gets hired

So far, the impact on workers has been more complicated than outright job replacement. AI is being used to automate some tasks while helping workers perform others, and its use in the workplace is growing quickly.

Research from The Conference Board found that by the end of 2025, roughly 41% of U.S. workers and 18% of U.S. companies reported using AI. Within three years, it estimates that 60% to 70% of jobs in the "cognitive workforce" could involve people working alongside AI.

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But to Obama's point about junior associates, AI displacement may be more pronounced among younger workers entering the job market. Stanford University's Institute for Economic Policy Research reported that unemployment among recent college graduates reached 5.6% in early 2026, up 1.6 percentage points from three years earlier.

"Junior roles often involve routine research, analysis and writing tasks that can now largely be done with AI," Stanford researchers wrote, adding that there's evidence AI "may be dampening demand for new hires."

Signs of a rebound have emerged in at least some AI-exposed fields, though hiring has yet to return to levels seen before ChatGPT launched in late 2022. According to a recent analysis by Investopedia, job postings for software developers fell 73% from their February 2022 peak through February 2025, but have since risen by roughly 21%. Software-development openings nevertheless remain about 23% below pre-pandemic levels.

Could new demand offset AI job losses?

The near-term picture may be difficult for some workers, particularly those trying to get a foot in the door. But another school of thought argues that AI's longer-term impact will depend on how much new demand the technology creates as it makes services cheaper.

Torsten Slok, partner and chief economist at Apollo, points to Jevons paradox, the idea that making something cheaper or more efficient can lead people to use more of it. He argues the same dynamic could play out in cognitive industries heavily exposed to AI.

"As AI makes many processes cheaper in finance, consulting and legal services," Slok wrote, "we should expect more demand and more jobs in those sectors, not fewer."

Slok pointed to medical imaging as an example. As the cost of PET, CT and MRI scans fell by roughly 70% over two decades, the number of scans at least doubled. In other words, lower costs helped boost enough additional demand that overall usage increased rather than declined.

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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Obama says AI flipped from 90% human-taught to 50/50 in under a year — the six-figure jobs he says go first

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