AI Driven Job Losses: Your Future has Arrived

Change is everywhere in the world of work. You don’t have to imagine a world where AI could replace you as this is happening here and now and maybe even in your own organisation today. Whole industries are either disappearing or being transformed and that trend is increasing at pace.

No matter what you may read in public, behind the scenes, companies are increasingly laying people off because of AI. Companies are driven by revenue and profits, and they are always on a never-ending quest for efficiency and cost cutting, rightfully. The highest costs are in salaries and benefits and concomitant “human capital” costs. if AI (which runs 24/7) without breaks, health care packages, gym memberships, company cars and the like, then it’s a no-brainer for you to be replaced by AI. It’s much cheaper and it makes perfect business sense. However, this insightful article in HBR adds an interesting twist to this argument.

As AI capabilities develop and evolve, human employees will have to prove over and over again, it seems, the viability of their roles and what ongoing value they bring to their own organisation. At some point of singularity, what exactly is that human value? It is entirely possible that we are looking down the barrel of autonomous organisations devoid of human employees where AI’s do all the work and make all C-suite level decisions? This too is not science-fiction, anymore.

We need to both raise our awareness and our resolve to embrace AI. Now, whether it embraces you back is another question. My work with organisations to help them prepare their culture for the impact of AI, are just some ways that companies today are endeavouring to fervently address this real and existential challenge/opportunity head-on.