Artificial intelligence is everywhere nowadays and these “intelligent” robotic voices have become an integral part of our daily life now. Not just they are helping humans in their endeavors but are also becoming good at taking our jobs and are radically altering the ways of doing work. AI is diagnosing diseases, giving high-quality customer services and even translating languages. Evident concerns are being raised whether AI will ultimately replace the human labor in different verticals of the economy. Largely, these technologies were meant to augment the human skill-sets not replace them altogether.
Jobs At Risk
Every month we see study reports predicted that a large portion of the workforce is going lose their jobs to hands of artificial intelligence. In 2014 a report by Oxford University shook the world, predicting that 47% of jobs could be automated by 2033. Last year McKinsey’s research wing predicted AI-driven job losses at 5%.
Major Indian software services corporations like Cognizant, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and Infosys have reduced their headcount lately and are aiming for more reduction in coming years. Foxconn also replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots in 2016.
As artificial intelligence is improving its capabilities exponentially, the customary question arises “What will be the future of these automation driven firms?”
Firms exist to solve the real world complex problems efficiently, thus to increase their efficiency firms are using technology to reduce their costs and raise their productivity. Automation enhances lean management and reduces transaction costs, which compels companies to adopt these technologies.
Many firms are using deep learning to automate the client’s queries through chatbots. Some companies are planning to replace all the call centers with AI in the next couple of years.
Chatbots are going to handle frontline IT support calls and AI is helping IT managers by being a dominant solution in IT service management (ITSM) and rapidly decreasing the dependency on human resources.
Driverless cars are using AI to transform the whole transportation sector, where autonomous cars will reduce the demand for professional drivers rapidly in coming years.
Companies are aiming to increase their quantum of work but with reduced manpower. Traditional human-managed companies are staring at an existential threat. Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has also raised his concerns multiple times that AI can be harmful to the society and demanded regulations around this technology. Thinkers like Stephen Hawking warned against the excessive use of AI and believed that people will lose jobs.
Power of Artificial Intelligence
Being a disruptive technology, efficient use of cutting-edge AI can transform economies.
Artificial technology can decrease the burden on workers by doing repetitive and time-consuming tasks, especially in factories where robots can do such manual tasks faster and physical workers can be trained and utilized for more crucial tasks.
Instead of hiring hundreds of agents to chat or attend calls from customers, companies can use chatbots for instant services to visitors on their websites and only in the case any technical glitch an agent will come in the picture.
With the use of cheaper bots, small companies can expand their operations and become profitable instead of pouring money into hiring specialized assistants. These days many startups are using computerized assistants to save their operating costs and diverting their funds in order to expand their reach.
In previous years, sales and marketing managers used to send teams of field agents to collect market data and salespersons for the door to door selling. But now artificial technologies like machine learning, data mining and deep learning have disrupted the need for such traditional techniques and in near future, we may expect retail AI agents shrinking the importance of networks of physical stores. Like Amazon is evolving at a furious pace by using these technologies to recommend products to customers, determine which deals to offer and when.
AI can eliminate bureaucracy from various government departments where a significant amount of data processing and handling is needed. Their energies could better be utilized in improving social mechanisms.
Humans Are Here To Stay
It’s not that after the incoming of artificial intelligence people have only started losing jobs, there are some gainers too. Human assistance is required to develop these AI systems and after development, the most crucial part of training these systems comes. For training machines, algorithm formation and data gathering are done and these processes need experienced resources.
Outcomes of the tasks done by machines can be counterintuitive and a human mind is required to extract insights and explain the results. Machines can break down anytime, codes and algorithms are susceptible to failures, so here also a responsible human support system should be in place to tackle any kind of deviation from normal.
When Cortana, Microsoft’s AI assistant was being trained, it required months of extensive training to develop the right personality for the bot, and a team including a poet, a playwright, and a novelist ensured its accuracy.
Conclusion
In the long run, artificial intelligence will only empower the human factor in handling complex situations and can never replace the judging capabilities and creative thinking of a human. Though we will see a different environment incorporates in the next decades, the fear of robots replacing humans is too far-fetched.
A big concern is that the rate at which AI adoption is going on is much faster than the pace of companies re-skilling their workforce which can be seen as a major threat or opportunity. Seemingly, the best possible solution will be for the companies to become successful will be to retrain their workforce, use their experience and augment their value and potential with artificial intelligence. Another dominating factor is that the companies need a good amount of employees who understand these AI systems and can work to ensure their functioning and reliability.
AI is becoming a massive influence in the corporate world and companies should be wise enough to see the trends and formulate their strategy accordingly. Recently, PwC predicted that artificial technologies can add around $16 trillion to global GDP by 2030. Seeing the rate at which artificial intelligence is growing, it is advisable for the companies to reap the benefits of this technology with slight changes in their corporate culture.
Blackcoffer Insights 5.0, Ayush Dabas, IIM Amritsar
