It’s all fun and games until AI comes for your job – the hens will eventually come home to roost for executives
Having spent the last 12 months championing the company’s use of AI to automate roles, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski appears to be worried about his own prospects in years to come.
In a post on X earlier this month, Siemiatkowski hinted that AI could eventually render his own role obsolete, suggesting that the technology is nearing a point where it can carry out the top job.
A key factor here, he noted, is that breakthroughs in AI ‘reasoning’ have opened the door for firms to begin considering implementing the technology at the highest levels.
“To me AI is capable of doing all our jobs, my own included,” Siemiatkowski wrote. “Because our work is simply reasoning combined with knowledge/experience. And the most critical breakthrough, reasoning, is behind us.”
“My work to me is a super important part of who I am, and realizing it might become unnecessary is gloomy.”
Siemiatkowski isn’t alone in this belief. In fact, it’s a worry that a number of high-ranking executives globally have become wary of over the last year. As AI systems become increasingly powerful, what’s to say they’re not going to come for the top jobs?
In a survey conducted by edX last year, nearly half (49%) of CEOs said they believe most or all of their jobs could be automated or replaced by AI, compared to just 20% of IT workers.
It must be difficult for senior executives to come to terms with the prospect of their own jobs being rendered obsolete. Up until now, it’s all been rather abstract for them and these considerations have largely been reserved for workers lower down in the pecking order.
The hens will come home to roost very soon. Unfortunately, it’ll be the rest of the workforce that bears the brunt of this trend first. Replacing the calculated business minds of human executives with the cold, callous reasoning of an AI model doesn’t bear thinking about.
But as companies like Meta move to replace software engineers with AI, executives will only set a precedent for widespread replacement of human positions by machines – and who’s to say even the best leaders can’t be replaced by an algorithm down the line?
AI job losses aren’t quite so abstract anymore
AI-related job losses have become a contentious talking point over the last two years, and a topic that seems to have been divided into several camps.
The alarmists are unwavering in their belief that the technology will result in widespread social and economic upheaval, while others appear to view it as no different to previous eras of industrial change. A natural evolution of the business world, some would have you believe.
Research from Goldman Sachs in early 2023 painted a grim picture for the future of workers globally, suggesting that anywhere up to 300 million jobs could be lost to automation as the industry accelerates the adoption of generative AI tools. More recently, the emergence of agentic AI has further fuelled concerns about job losses.
Having AI tools to support the human worker is one thing – having an AI agent perform tasks on their behalf is an entirely different ball game and perhaps is a serious cause for concern.
We’ve already seen some examples of AI resulting in cuts. In mid-2023, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna announced plans to automate HR roles in a move that will see thousands of jobs cut in the coming years.
However, the onslaught of job losses hasn’t quite materialized so far. That’s not to suggest that this reality isn’t still looming over our heads, but it’s by and large been confined to the realms of research papers, op-eds, and grave warnings from industry stakeholders. But make no mistake: these workers represent the lifeblood of an organization and I’d say that losing out on your top talent across critical functions could inflict a heavier toll on an enterprise than having a CEO replaced.
Speaking at Nvidia’s AI Summit in Mumbai in October last year, Huang said that while AI has the potential to automate aspects of human roles, he has no concerns that his own would be replaced by AI – nor those of other senior executives.
The likelihood of CEOs losing their jobs to AI is minimal, largely due to the fact they have a vested interest in maintaining their own position while reaping the rewards of cutting staff in favor of the technology. An AI CEO might deliver shareholder value, but it won’t wax lyrical in earnings calls.
If it happens, and that’s a big ‘if’, there will be a few major industry figures looking over their shoulders.
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