AI should take all of us to the future, not just a handful of fortunate ones

Navanwita Sachdev
Thu, 18 Jul 2024 15:15:55 +0000
Business, AI, future, jobs, software, tech

Image credits: Freepik

We might have to embrace AI headlong whether we want to or not. Then why not ensure that access to it is equitable. AI should take all of us to the future, not just a handful of fortunate ones.

The debate about whether AI is a job killer or not has been raging for a while, with some experts saying jobs will change but not be eliminated, while others are tugging the alarm bells quite hard. AI will impact 60% of jobs in advanced economies and 40% of jobs around the world in the next two years, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Now with Gen AI speeding up human-like robot development, the job loss possibility from arrival of Gen AI will cover not just writers, artists, and customer care reps, but also labour intensive jobs.

And layoffs are happening. At the beginning of the year, Google laid off an unspecified number of employees, as did Amazon. The fact that these layoffs follow big tech super investments in AI hasn’t escaped the attention of many.

The Optimistic Hail AI Jobs

Those belonging to the camp that AI will create new jobs are optimistic that the advent of this technology is important in the long run for humanity’s interface with technology.

Nitin Seth, Co-founder and CEO of Conversive, a SaaS platform that builds personalized conversational messaging solutions for professionals and institutes based on data from CRMs and AI-powered chatbots, assured Business Standard that new jobs are definitely going to be created.

“If there are people who are doing a mundane job and AI can do a better job with more predictability, yes, people are going to prefer automation and AI,” he says.

But he says there are areas such as customer care, which is one of the business areas AI has definitely taken over, where humans will be needed.

“We see a need for a human to talk to the consumers, to the patient, to the job seeker, to the loan applicant, and so on. Those cases will be there. New jobs will be created,” he assures.

He adds that business communication companies like his want to offer the expertise of how to write a message which gets a response, how to use a chatbot to get that response. However, at the same time, they need humans to configure those chatbots.

AI companies that are building chatbots and using automation to apply to human jobs are consulting human teams to build them.

“I believe finally, human nature will evolve, and we’ll develop skills which use the AI better. But yeah, the question is out there,” he adds.

“Many manual, mundane, and repetitive roles and responsibilities will benefit from automation with AI,” said Ruban Phukan, CEO of GoodGist, a company that uses AI to upskill workers. “Even some of the core tech roles, like coding and software testing, will see a fair amount of Gen AI-based automation. This doesn’t mean a reduction of jobs but that the nature of the job requirements will change, and maybe for the better.”

According to Phukan, this transformation doesn’t diminish the value of traditional software development; instead, it underscores the continuous need for experts in AI, machine learning, and coding to innovate and refine these intelligent systems.

“As technology advances and AI capabilities expand, new roles will emerge, focusing on training, managing, ethical considerations, integration, and beyond, ensuring that AI contributes positively to society and industry,” he adds.

In fact, he sees a significant opportunity in this paradigm shift from pure software development to a broader focus on domain expertise and problem-solving.

“It enables us to tackle pressing issues more effectively, leveraging the power of AI to scale solutions. In essence, the ultimate goal remains to ensure that technology serves as a catalyst for solutions, not as a source of new problems, echoing the foundational purpose of software to solve, not to complicate,” he says.

Finding AI Talent is Already a Race

In fact, many say that we will have so many new jobs involving AI that we’ll all be talent hunting.

As Groq chief Jonathan Ross said in a recent interview with SafeGraph CEO Auren Hoffman, “We keep thinking of each technology as displacing work. One of the things that is probably going to happen is it will create more jobs for people than we have people … there will suddenly be a lack of supply of people to do things”.

Tech giants are locked in an AI talent arms race looking to fill over 100,000 positions amid scarce supply of generative AI talent, leading to attractive compensation packages. Wipro, in its latest earnings call, announced that it looks to lead in generative AI consulting, training over 225,000 employees to enhance its AI-focused services.

“We are on the brink of a major technological shift. Every client I talk to across industries is very eager to leverage AI to shape the future of their business, and at Wipro, we have been gearing up for this moment,” AIM quoted Wipro’s new chief Srinivas Pallia during the Indian IT giant’s Q4 2024 earnings call.

Other companies in India have been investing steadily in AI, particularly GenAI. Although the results of this quarter haven’t been phenomenal, there is progress. AI and generative AI pipeline of TCS, for example, recorded US$900 million. HCLTech also says that they won about seven or eight Gen AI deals in the latest quarter.

“As we look ahead, global enterprise technology spend will only grow with adoption of AI. We are well positioned to capitalize with our AI-led propositions, global delivery model and ideal mix of technology services and products,” said C Vijayakumar, CEO & Managing Director, HCLTech.

Companies like Ola Krutrim, which launched a standalone Android app for its AI chatbot that aims to vie with the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot, are bringing in opportunities.

A Self-Consuming Job Engine?

It’s true that AI is creating big pools of upskilling and reskilling opportunities. Companies now have new positions such as Chief AI Officer, AI Ethicist, and prompt engineers. An MIT Tech Review article recently published the thoughts of a prompt engineer in Greece, who says her role is more than just prompt writing and includes identifying and integrating AI-based solutions for business challenges.

“The higher tiers of prompt engineering are where the enduring and evolving aspects of the role lie,” she says.

At the same time, the speed at which AI self improves could make it a self-consuming job engine.

The fear that Gen AI will make jobs vanish for writers and such feels very real. But not just writers, at the speed that AI is evolving, even prompt engineers might find themselves jobless if AI self improves at understanding the prompts. In fact, some people are saying this isn’t a career at all, just a learning phase in AI.

Is it wise to rush into AI’s arms with all that we have when fears of losing to it lurk in the air? But at the rate that AI is transforming industries, we don’t seem to have a choice. Then maybe we should embrace it with caution and ensure that access to it is equitable. AI should take all of us to the future, not just a handful of fortunate.

This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company.