Standard Chartered chief executive Bill Winters has apologised for recent comments he made about artificial intelligence spurring cuts in "lower-value human capital", but said possible redundancies required "mature discussion".His previous comments caused a major backlash from Standard Chartered employees and the general public amid growing worries about the possibility of AI causing a surge in unemployment. "I have received a lot of support for the messages in my previous post but still get questions about my choice of words, which I know has caused upset to some colleagues. For that I am sorry," he posted on the LinkedIn social media platform on Friday. On Tuesday, Mr Winters spoke to reporters at the company's investment forum in Hong Kong about future redundancies and said that AI would replace "lower-value human capital". Standard Chartered recently said as many as 8,000 positions would be eliminated within four years as the company evolves. The next day, Standard Chartered said that Mr Winters's comments had been taken out of context. Before the apology message on Friday, Mr Winters acknowledged that his comments had "generated significant discussion". "I said that lower-value roles are more vulnerable to automation, and that we have a responsibility to help colleagues move into higher-value roles," he wrote, adding that he wanted to continue the important discussion, and that it deserves "mature discussion". The backlash over Mr Winters's initial comments came days after Google's former chief executive Eric Schmidt was loudly booed while delivering a graduation speech at the University of Arizona. The loudest criticism came when Mr Schmidt told graduating students about the need for young workers to adapt to AI. Mr Schmidt was not alone in being shouted down while giving a commencement address and mentioning AI. Big Machine Records chief executive Scott Borchetta was also recently put on the defensive when he spoke about why graduates needed to embrace AI. "Then do something about it," Mr Borchetta said during the commencement ceremony at Middle Tennessee State University, briefly pausing after hearing moans and boos from the audience. Although much of the backlash faced by Mr Winters and Standard Chartered revolved around AI worries, there was also concern over how he referred to employees as "human capital". Weeks ago, Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang blamed the increasingly negative reaction to AI on what he called "executives with a God complex".Mr Huang, whose company has seen record revenue amid the ongoing AI boom, said during a podcast that the ongoing insistence that AI will cause a significant labour disruption was “counterproductive, and in fact hurtful”.Recent polls show that while more people are using AI, they're also growing significantly more worried about it.