There have been issues regarding AI, especially in the arts. A lot of artists (those who promote themselves on X) have been voicing their concerns about art theft with the use of AI. The people who do that would claim that they created the art and would make a profit from it. This current issue has been going on since AI art, or AI itself, was introduced.
AI can be used personally, but others use it to gain profit. Many people believe that AI has its pros and cons; this could be true. It all depends on how people will use AI. Either for their gain or just personally for them.
Even if AI will make things easier in some workplaces, there are jobs and positions in the workplace that AI can’t replace.
Skilled Trades
It is difficult for AI to approach jobs requiring practical skills, situational flexibility, and the capacity to believe in complex systems and identify issues with existing systems, such as those performed by craftsmen, plumbers, and electricians.
Teaching and Education
While AI can greatly improve education through automated grading, coaching, and personalized learning, effective teaching often involves developing relationships with students, learning about their individual needs, and offering mentorship and guidance. AI is unable to be useful here.
Caregivers for the Elderly and Disabled
New needs will emerge as our population ages. More empathy, tolerance, and adaptability are needed to provide care to more people with special needs, such as companionship and help with everyday tasks, qualities that AI is currently unable to offer. But in this particular field, AI will be a useful instrument.
Social Work
AI will be a helpful tool, but it will never pose a threat to social workers because they deal with a variety of unpredictable, sudden, and complex human situations that call for a high level of emotional intelligence, adaptability, and ethical judgment.
Therapists and counselors
In addition to going above and beyond the call of duty, providing emotional support, therapy, counseling, and creative problem-solving calls for profound empathy, a human connection, and comprehension of nuanced emotional dynamics.
Research and development
Exploring the unknown, being curious, developing hypotheses and gut feelings, and continuously experimenting are all aspects of scientific research and the innovation that follows. These activities all depend on human creativity and inventiveness, as well as the belief that innovation may occur down the road that we may not be able to see today.
Health Care
Healthcare professionals such as physicians, nurses, surgeons, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and others combine clinical judgment, human touch, empathy, and medical knowledge with a healthy dose of common sense. Artificial intelligence (AI) can support and improve diagnosis and treatment recommendations, but it cannot take the place of human healthcare providers.
Creative Problem-Solving
Left-brained, linear thinking is capable of solving a wide range of issues. However, they are not the ones who transform civilization. Work involving the solution of new and challenging issues or appealing to potential clients calls for a variety of skills, including creativity, critical thinking, holistic thinking, pattern recognition, and adaptability. While AI can help with data analysis and decision support, it is completely incapable of producing truly new insights.
Creative Professions
Artists’ jobs, like those of writers, painters, musicians, and other creatives in the advertising industry, for example, are less susceptible to automation because they largely rely on human creativity, emotion, and subjective interpretation. While AI may attempt to replace our left brain, our right brain will always belong to us.
This is why a lot of digital artists are pretty strong in voicing their disapproval of AI art.
Leadership
Prioritizing vision is essential for leadership positions. AI doesn’t have it, can’t get it, and can’t even assist with it. Although AI has limitations that it may never fully overcome, its strengths include strategic thinking, decision-making, the capacity to inspire, motivate, and build teams, as well as the creation of ethical systems.
As AI continues to improve itself so it can be used or be part of our daily lives, here we have companies that have (or may have) replaced their workers with AI in 2024.
Turnitin
The AI detection platform Turnitin recently revealed plans to cut staff. To minimize the requirement for several years of experience, CEO Chris Caren sought to hire AI personnel at the high school level. Consequently, Turnitin let go of 15 workers in 2023, even though Caren had originally planned to reduce the workforce by 20% in just 18 months.
Duolingo
The gamified language learning app Duolingo has declared that it will be offboarding 10% of its contractor workforce to switch to artificial intelligence (AI) for content translation, demonstrating its intention to replace human labor with AI.
Salesforce
Salesforce reduced staff by 10% and let go of 700 employees last year, or 1% of its total workforce worldwide. Even though it has nothing to do with AI, some claim that automated labor could fill a lot of jobs.
BlueFocus
Chinese marketing agency BlueFocus terminated the contracts of its human content writers and designers in April, citing generative AI. This move came after being granted Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service license and partnering with Baidu ERNIE Bot.
IKEA
The Swedish furniture company Ikea is replacing call center employees with an AI bot named Billie. As an alternative, the business intends to upskill impacted workers and train thousands to work as interior designers’ advisors, generating new employment and expanding growth prospects.
Dukaan
In July, Bangalore-based online retailer Dukaan replaced 90% of its customer service representatives with an internal chatbot, justifying the decision as “tough but necessary” because it cut expenses by 85% and shortened wait times.
During a significant AI deployment in customer service and ad sales processes, Google has announced two rounds of layoffs that primarily affect its ad division, with a third round possibly in the works to improve operational efficiency.
MSN
According to PA Media, the US web portal MSN fired journalists in 2020 and replaced them with AI software. It was reported that financial issues, not the pandemic, were the reason behind the move.
The reason for replacing employees with AI in certain companies varies from financial reasons to the fact that the company got hit with the pandemic and had no choice but to lay off some of its workers.
There are still companies that are planning to replace their employees with AI in the future.
BT
To optimize customer service operations and avoid a “robot-like” experience for customers, British telecoms company BT intends to eliminate 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade and replace 10,000 with artificial intelligence.
IBM
Within five years, IBM intends to gradually replace 30% of back-office jobs with AI, affecting 7,800 positions. Within the next ten years, CEO Arvind Krishna also intends to replace complex roles like productivity and workforce composition.
While “AI takeovers” are something that everyone is concerned about, we can strategize how humans can benefit from using AI.
A recent analysis found that AI is used in almost 40% of jobs worldwide. High-skilled jobs are predicted to be impacted by AI, which presents more opportunities and risks for developed economies than for emerging markets and developing nations.
AI applications have the potential to reduce hiring and labor demand, potentially affecting 60% of jobs in advanced economies. It is anticipated that AI exposure will be 26% and 40% in low-income and emerging markets, respectively.
It may have an impact on wealth and income inequality as well. Workers who can use AI may see increases in pay and productivity. The degree to which AI supplements high-earning workers will determine the effect on labor income. To stop AI from escalating social unrest, policymakers need to take a proactive approach to addressing this trend.
We are now in the era of AI, where it’s being used anywhere and maybe almost everywhere, and we still have the power to control it to ensure that it benefits us humans.
Slingo released an article related to AI takeovers that might interest you.
