AI Taking Over Human Jobs? IBM To Freeze Hiring, Replace 7,800 Jobs With Artificial Intelligence, Says Report
IBM currently has a workforce of about 260,000 workers. The firm continues to hike for software development and customer-facing roles. The statements about possible AI integration come a few months after it announced it was laying off over 3,900 employees.
Mumbai, May 2: International Business Machines Corp's chief executive officer (CEO) Arvind Krishna said the tech firm expects to pause hiring for roles it thinks could be replaced with artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming years. The Bloomberg News on Monday reported that the company to pause hiring for roles as many as 7,800 jobs and replace them with AI in future. In an interview with a media outlet, Krishna said, "Hiring in back-office functions, such as human resources, will be suspended or slowed. These non-customer-facing roles amount to roughly 26,000 workers. I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
An IBM spokesperson said that it would mean roughly 7,800 jobs lost. Part of any reduction would include not replacing roles vacated by attrition. Krishna added, "More mundane tasks such as providing employment verification letters or moving employees between departments will likely be fully automated." He added that some HR functions, such as evaluating workforce composition and productivity, probably won’t be replaced over the next decade. Jobs in AI Industry: Demand for Talent in Artificial Intelligence Grows 11% in India Over Past Six Months.
IBM currently has a workforce of about 260,000 workers. The firm continues to hike for software development and customer-facing roles. The statements about possible AI integration come a few months after it announced it was laying off over 3,900 employees. In January, the tech giant said it was letting go of the employees due to missing its annual cash target and as part of more extensive asset divestments. IBM's 2022 cash flow was $9.3 billion, below its target of $10 billion, due to higher-than-expected working capital needs. Meta Seeks Help From Microsoft, OpenAI To Create AI Coding Assistant for Its Engineers.
Artificial Intelligence has been around for some time now, and AI-powered chatbots are gaining immense popularity in a short span. In February 2013, a survey conducted by job advice platform Resumebuilder.com revealed that some US-based companies have started deploying Open-AI's ChatGPT instead of human workers.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 02, 2023 09:25 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).