The fears of artificial intelligence taking over human workers are a reality and even those in the industry should agree that some jobs will be lost. Arvind Krishna, the IBM Chief Executive Officer has said that although AI is bound to eradicate some types of jobs, it will also bring new opportunities that will come at a cost as long as workers are ready to acquire new skills.
Krishna, in a recent interview with Bloomberg, declared call centre operations to be among the most vulnerable. He claimed that half of such jobs could be easily eradicated over time as AI systems become more efficient in terms of dealing with customers within a relatively short amount of time and in a more precise manner.
Even internal support functions are in danger. He says that IT and HR helpdesk jobs would reduce drastically as automation tools would do the initial query management and administration.
Jobs that involve a lot of repetitive activities like matching documents in the accounts payable and receivables may experience similar disruption. Krishna mentioned that he had an idea that he would lose in the range of half of those jobs as AI will become more efficient and will not have to use the manual verification.
The IBM chief gave an optimistic note in spite of the caution. He emphasized that change in technology does not merely annihilate employment but transforms it.
He said that companies have the responsibility of equipping their workforce in order to make this shift. It is our responsibility to ensure that we are able to impart on workers other skills as he emphasized on the issue of upskilling and reskilling.
Krishna used research and developing as a case of an area where talent demands are increasing. IBM has increased its investments in that and employed thousands of individuals to facilitate high value technologies innovation.
In his opinion, the gains obtained in the creation of such productive areas can replace the losses that are going to automation more than sufficiently.
On assuming Power in 2020, Krishna has steered IBM out of old business and increased focus on newer emerging parts like generative AI, hybrid cloud, and software driven services.
He has already admitted that AI is already changing work in the company itself, showing that AI automation tools are now doing the same job that previously was done by approximately 200 human resources workers.
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In the case of Krishna, this is obvious. Change is unavoidable and though the future workforce will be bigger, more skillful and productive with the proper training and transition plans.
