# AI may expand demand instead of eliminating professions

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/ai-may-expand-demand-instead-of-eliminating-professions/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Reed Hastings](https://realalpha.app/people/reed-hastings/) · Reed Hastings is cofounder and former CEO of Netflix. · Co-founded Netflix and led it as CEO, then became majority owner and chair of Powder Mountain.
- Host: [Reid Hoffman](https://realalpha.app/people/reid-hoffman/) · Co-founder, Manas AI · Co-founded LinkedIn; one of OpenAI's first investors; Greylock partner.
- Show: Possible
- Episode: [Reed Hastings: From Building Netflix to What Comes Next](https://realalpha.app/v/2qoGbd9d2yA/), Apr 22, 2026
- Moment: 16:39 to 19:35 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/ai-may-expand-demand-instead-of-eliminating-professions/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/2qoGbd9d2yA/?t=999

## Quote

> “we have a shortage now. We have 35,000 radiologists. **We need about 40,000**. Wages are high.”
> — [Reed Hastings](https://realalpha.app/people/reed-hastings/) at [17:54](https://realalpha.app/v/2qoGbd9d2yA/?t=1074) · Possible

## Takeaways

1. Radiology scans became dramatically cheaper with AI assistance.
2. The U.S. has 35,000 radiologists but needs about 40,000.
3. Hastings thinks lawyers may be more exposed because their work is verbal and formulaic.

## About this segment

Reed Hastings points to radiology, where cheaper AI-assisted scans have coincided with a shortage of radiologists. He expects demand to grow in some fields even as AI changes how the work gets done.

From “Reed Hastings: From Building Netflix to What Comes Next”, Apr 22, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/2qoGbd9d2yA/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[16:44](https://realalpha.app/v/2qoGbd9d2yA/?t=1004) whether it's in three years or 10? Well, I was going to say the least affected, I think, will be entertainment. Like you're not going to watch a basketball game of robots. Right. March Madness is not going to be taken over by AI. We're safe. So we like the human conflict and that draws us in. So most like a percentage reduction in employment. One theory would be software engineers because everyone's working really hard on kind of automated software development. But there's a substantial chance that while many companies will have reduced software engineering employment, there'll be many other opportunities for more software right so that kind of elastic response is well it's what we've seen in radiology which is an interesting example because radiology is image processing computers AI are much better than humans at, and have been now for several years. Okay, and so you can now

[17:36](https://realalpha.app/v/2qoGbd9d2yA/?t=1056) go into an MRI center, and if you're self-pay, 300 bucks and get an MRI. It's dramatically down in pricing, and so people are getting many more scans, and they're being read by AI with a radiologist approving them. So I had thought four years ago, going to be devastation in radiology. It's going to be the first, you know, high-end profession. Everyone talks about this, right? Right. Obvious. Well, we have a shortage now.

[17:59](https://realalpha.app/v/2qoGbd9d2yA/?t=1079) We have 35,000 radiologists. We need about 40,000. Wages are high. And so it's a good example of it's easy to get focused on, you know, the disaster case with, you know, Armageddon. We love movies about Armageddon. We have them in our religions. You know, it's like we love disaster. So we're drawn to these scenarios of AI wiping out things. Okay. And again, it hasn't happened in radiology. maybe it will eventually, but not in the last five years. So my hunch is that many professions will be resilient and that there's certainly much more demand for health care. So now, is there much more demand for legal services? Maybe. I mean, poor people are definitely underlawyered. They can take advantage of a lot. So maybe there will be a whole elastic response there and and we'll see but if i had to guess it might be lawyers as the kind of most affected

[18:56](https://realalpha.app/v/2qoGbd9d2yA/?t=1136) because it's very verbal um and it's somewhat formulaic not as much as writing software but somewhat formulaic well and also if we thought about like what would be an increase in productivity if you had actually people shifting from legal work which is generally transactional costs on things are happening to actually production of things that would actually in fact be a general positive thing in society and i say this as a child of two lawyers so i actually think it would be a good thing if the work shifted more towards how do we build more products and services what are the ways that we create entertainment create other work you know