Many job cuts are ascribed to AI. How much we trust such justifications from organizations is up to us. While there may be elements of truth, I don’t feel AI applications have been so capable, refined and tailored to an organization to have caused the job cuts and shutdowns of the last 2 years, even if they were done anticipating the long-term AI-based future.
Job losses in the Western world are due to a multitude of factors. After COVID lockdowns, economies and supply chains have struggled to recover. Cost of living crisis, weak demand, quantitative easing, recession, stagflation — it’s a vicious economic word-soup out there.
Social trends complicate things further. Self-righteousness emanating from woke ideologies is one. The second, more powerful one, is the impacts of arrangements like Work From Home. Many people claim WFH makes them more productive, but its impact on overall organizational productivity, and the wider economy is debatable. Then there is “quiet quitting”, social activism by employees etc.
As the economic crunch hits, pressure on producing real earnings and real profits increases. Governments are being forced to downsize. There is already top-down pressure on jobs. The new sensitives and reconditioning of people is now creating bottom-up pressures also. Remote working at the same time is getting more acceptable. 2 + 2 = 4. Employers are recognizing that if a job can be performed from home, it might also be outsourced to another country where labor costs are lower, leading to offshoring. AI of course can take this one step further and eliminate the need for human labor in numerous job functions.
While the growing capabilities of AI provide a tempting alternative to employers in today’s tight economic environment, AI is not decimating jobs at the moment: socio-economic conditions are.
At this point in time, AI is not taking over humans, but current conditions are clearing the field and inviting AI to take over. In the future for sure, AI will replace workers, reduce jobs, drastically alter and eliminate job functions and completely upend the nature of work.
Now, technology has a long history of displacing jobs. Paradoxically, it’s also created jobs for people developing these technologies. With AI, we are seeing demand for AI/ML skills increase however, any rise will be offset by rise of low code and no code tools, many powered by AI. AI is an intelligent technology. While dumb(er) technologies required human development, and created more jobs for humans in the knowledge economy, chances are that future AI advances will also be done by AI.