Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM, has announced that not only will his company put a hiring pause into effect, but that it also intends to replace nearly 8,000 positions at the company with Artificial Intelligence software.
Krishna said that among the first positions at the company to feel the effects of these changes would be the back-office positions, specifically in the Human Resources (HR) sector.
He noted that the changes will be implemented gradually, over the next few years, and that over time it is expected that machines will potentially take over about 30% of noncustomer-facing positions within five years. Going forward, it is expected that workers handling finance, accounting, HR and other sectors will increasingly find themselves trying to outperform robots and algorithms.
The announcement is the first of likely many to come, where human workers will see increasing competition from automation processes and artificial intelligence technologies across various sectors, as companies look to leverage technology to cut costs and reduce overhead.
Earlier in the year, IBM had announced it would be cutting 3,900 jobs, a sign of how the tech industry is increasingly seeking to use technology to increase efficiency and reduce overhead.
With the statement, IBM joins the ranks of other tech titans which have sought to reduce their workforces in an effort to contain costs, such as Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Twitter Inc., and Microsoft Corp.
Writers have been saying for some time now that artificial intelligence has the potential to upend job markets by replacing human workers with less costly machines as it rapidly transforms the workforce to a more automated, and less human form.
The trend has even been commented upon by the White House, which released a report in December that noted it was “inevitable” that some workers were going to see their jobs replaced by AI machines.
Krishna is optimistic about the future of AI however, noting it will make it possible to eliminate thousands of hours of labor-intensive tasks in areas of the business such as finance, accounting, and HR. According to estimates, AI will add $16 trillion in production to the global economy by the year 2030.
A new report by economists out of Goldman Sachs predicts that as many as 300 million jobs worldwide may be affected by the new wave of AI technologies, such as ChatGPT. The report went on to assert that 18% of all work worldwide could potentially be replaced by machines, with the most advanced economies seeing the most effect from the advance of the technology into the workforce.
The news at IBM signals that the advance of AI into the workforce has begun, as AI begins to enter every facet of our lives. Already startup AvaWatz has begun to use the technology to produce teams of AI robots capable of operating farms, clearing airfields, or a range of other functions. Experts note that as these AIs increase efficiency, they will inevitably trigger reductions in the number of available positions in other jobs.
