The boss of IBM, Arvind Krishna, has stated that in the next five years, about 30% of their jobs that don’t involve directly interacting with customers could be replaced by artificial intelligence.
IBM plans to temporarily stop hiring people for “back-office” jobs that could be done by artificial intelligence (AI) instead.
During an interview with Bloomberg on May 1st, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said that jobs in areas like human resources and accounting, which are usually done in the background and not seen by customers, are likely to be the first to be taken over by AI.
The head of IBM also said that he expects AI to replace as much as 30% of these jobs within the next five years.
Dropbox: Laying off 500 people and replacing them with AI
IBM: Pausing hiring for ~7,800 roles that could be done by AI
AI is already replacing jobs
— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) May 1, 2023
IBM has 282,000 workers all over the world according to LinkedIn, but only 26,000 of them don’t interact with customers. Bloomberg says that means AI could take over approximately 7,800 of those jobs.
The CEO said he could easily imagine AI and machines taking over 30% of those jobs within five years.
There are reports that say IBM has already saved more than $1 billion in business expenses and maintenance costs by using AI-based automation.
Some of the jobs that may be taken over by machines include tasks like giving letters to confirm someone’s employment or moving workers from one department to another.
Krishna believes that jobs in human resources that involve things like deciding which employees to hire, assessing how much work people do and other things that require human judgement, are not likely to be taken over by machines in the next ten years.
For AI to work, it must be built responsibly. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna shares how organizations can prepare for the challenges and opportunities ahead in @FortuneMagazine: https://t.co/WYBu6VUCuc pic.twitter.com/gZtLwTNklb
— IBM (@IBM) April 24, 2023
A lot of experts in the industry are unsure if AI will actually cause a lot of people to lose their jobs.
