It’s been almost a year since the emergence of AI Last spring, recalling another flowering: the “tulip craze” of the Dutch Golden Age, one of the most infamous examples of a financial bubble in economic history. But will ChatGPT bloom, with ramifications for any worker’s job, or will it wither as the petals fall from the proverbial plant?
Even though people are split on whether AI will take your job or improve it, one thing is becoming clear: Managers are starting to pit these innovations against disenfranchised workers.
Look no further than IBMwhose actions have climbed almost 17% since the start of the year, a boon attributed in part to the company’s adoption of AI. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has been open about the fact that many jobs at IBM can be partially or completely replaced by AI, even writing in April comment room for Fortune that it had used AI to reduce the number of employees working on relatively manual HR tasks to around 50 from 700 previously, allowing the company to focus on other things.
But Krishna is a little mixed on the subject, having reversed course by saying that certain roles would be replaced by AI has declaring that AI will generate more jobs than it eliminates. This is all to say that the jury is out on how policymakers will ultimately embrace and implement AI.
However, bosses are considering following IBM’s lead, a massive survey suggests: 41% of managers say they hope to replace their employees with cheaper AI products this year, according to a study. investigation of 3,000 managers by the software company beautiful.ai.
The report comes amid a wave of worker anger and instability. Employees do not have I felt bad on their work since the start of this pandemic, according to a survey by BambooHR. Struggling to make ends meet, many Americans have become embittered toward the job market and reported a loss of faith in almost all newer professions Gallup Poll on Honesty and Ethics.
Wage growth has recently inflation exceeded, although, after years of volatility, it makes sense that many households do not feel that the data necessarily affects their wallets. As the popularity of unions has increased recently (amid the successes of the UAW and research regarding the financial impact of a union), membership is still at a low level record low after decades of decline. The fight for higher wages and a living wage is evident in the so-called “hot summer of work,” as shown strike activity increased by 280% in the last year alone.
But it seems some managers turn their heads when it comes to whether to give a raise or hire a robot. In the new survey, nearly half of managers (48%) said their companies would benefit from replacing a large portion of human workers with tools. And 45% said they view these innovations as an opportunity to “reduce employee wages because less human labor is required.”
Are managers turning to science fiction or are they spectators of the rise of AI?
Of course, there was a wave of paranoia when AI began to experience its growth spurt in 2023. Rapid improvement and evolution caused many people to change seats, as 61% of Americans believed that new products could threaten civilization, according to a Reuters/Ipsos study. investigation.
As knee-jerk reactions to AI faded over the year, new theories emerged about AI’s trajectory. “No, it won’t replace you, but a human who could use AI better than you,” has become a popular phrase. take. Some spoke of the risk of losing a job depending on your sectorlevel of seniorityOr workplace. And young workers, by their vulnerable nature, reported the the biggest fear to lose their jobs because of AI. Many employees are looking to learn more about the beast they fear (it’s the devil, or generative AI, you know), with 79% saying they want training in this area from a consulting firm. Olivier Wyman.
Consider Noah Smith, the influential economics writer who left his job at Bloomberg Opinion to start his own substack, and Niall Ferguson, the Scottish economic historian who held positions at Stanford and Harvard (as well as at Bloomberg Opinion). They recently gave their opinion on the pessimist versus accelerationist debate.
“It is very possible that ordinary humans will have many well-paying jobs in the era of AI dominance – often doing much the same kind of work they do now,” Smith said. wrote on its Substack, sparking agreement and debate from a range of renowned economists who spoke to Peter Coy of the New York Times. Ferguson I got cold water on this, arguing that “recent evidence of labor market shocks from automation and international trade suggests that the negative impacts of AI will be geographically and demographically concentrated and that labor markets in the hardest-hit places will not adapt smoothly.”
Despite this, after investors poured billions into AItriggering comparisons to the stock market of the mid-to-late 90s, Rana Foroohar of Financial Times warns us that we might be ahead of ourselves. Warning of the “inevitability” of AI changing the world, disrupting our jobs or increasing productivity, she warns that we are still in the early stages of innovation, and that it will take decades to realize – and, of course, that the bubble could soon burst.
We are in new territory, or shaky ground if we take into account the mixed predictions of experts. All of this means that managers probably don’t have the AI influence they think they have to crush a potential worker uprising (if that’s what they wanted). And even if they did, perhaps managers would be better off worrying about their own role. Those at the top could be more exposed to AI invasion, although by their nature executive decisions are likely shielded from real vulnerability. And 48% of managers believe AI tools pose a threat to their salaries and will lead to lower wages across the workforce this year. An even higher number (50%) said they feared their management position would face an AI-related pay cut.
But most managers aren’t actually looking to have a fully robotic workforce. On the contrary, 66% of managers seek to use AI tools to improve the productivity of their employees. Only 12% of bosses say they use AI to reduce headcount or spend less on their workforce. So, leaders could be bluffing or simply weighing their options at this time.
“AI may not replace managers, but managers who use AI will replace managers who don’t. » IBM Chief Commercial Officer Rob Thomas said at a conference, according to TechCrunch. “It really changes the way people work.”