Generative AI tools trigger job loss fears

With new AI tools coming up, people are unsure that how it is going to disrupt technology industry. While a lot of things will be automated, there is also a fear that a lot of white collars may not return. In this context, hiring is going to be challenging in this tepid demand environment

- V Balakrishnan, chairman, Exfinity Ventures & former CFO of Infosys, tells Bizz Buzz

Bengaluru: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications are likely to create job losses across organisations apart from disrupting workflow in coming quarters. Experts are of the opinion that enterprises are currently in a ‘wait and watch’ mode as far as applications of generative AI tools like ChatGPT are concerned as they are unsure of its whole spectrum of usage.

“With new AI tools coming up, people are unsure that how it is going to disrupt technology industry. While a lot of things will be automated, there is also a fear that a lot of white collars may not return. In this context, hiring is going to be challenging in this tepid demand environment,” V Balakrishnan, Chairman, Exfinity Ventures & former CFO of Infosys, told Bizz Buzz.

“Firstly, the demand is bad and secondly, enterprises are building a lot of use cases. So, whether organizations need that employee becomes a question mark,” he added.

Sources in the know also said that technology firms are actively looking at replacing routine jobs with the help of AI, leading to fears of job losses.

Tech giant IBM’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Arvind Krishna already announced that the company may pause hiring for up to 7,800 positions as AI is likely to replace these functions. Back office operations such as human resources can be replaced through AI applications, he explained.

Founder of India’s largest brokerage firm Nithin Kamath recently said that the company is going to come up with an AI policy amid fears of huge job losses in the financial services industry. “We will not fire anyone on the team just because we have implemented a new piece of technology that makes an earlier job redundant,” Kamath has tweeted, explaining that new applications of AI are likely to take away jobs and disrupt society in coming years.

Similarly, Indian IT firms have started working proactively with clients to integrate ChatGPT kind of tools for improving operational efficiency.

“We have active projects with clients working with generative AI platforms to address specific areas within their business. We have trained open-source generative AI platforms on our internal software development libraries. We anticipate generative AI to provide more opportunities for work with our clients, and to enable us to improve our productivity,” Salil Parekh, CEO of Infosys has said in post earnings call.

Meanwhile, some industry officials working in AI-focused companies said that it is important to understand the end use of AI applications for better control and usage.

“Technology is an enabler and AI is an enabler. It is an enabler to solve a problem and bring in efficiency. Therefore, what we use AI for is very critical. The boundary and ethics have to very clear,” Ranjan Kumar, CEO & Founder of Entropik Tech, told Bizz Buzz.

Entropik Tech is an AI-powered integrated market research platform company that has developed applications like facial coding, eye tracking, and voice AI among others.

Earlier, owner of Tesla Elon Musk and 1,000 other eminent personalities signed a letter urging for a six-month halt on the development of advanced AI technology systems, given the potential of risks to jobs and workflows.