The artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has grabbed headlines around the world for quitting Google so he can warn the public about the dangers of A.I. without having to watch his words—and, as he conceded to the BBC, because he’s “75, so it’s time to retire.”
Hinton first laid out his concerns in a New York Times interview, saying he partially regrets the work he has done to bring A.I. to its current state. He’s worried about Google and Microsoft racing too vigorously to develop A.I. technologies, about propagandists flooding the internet with deepfakes—and about A.I. replacing human workers in “drudge work” roles.
The psychologist turned computer scientist—who has previously been overly bullish on A.I.’s capacity to take over professions such as radiology—described the jobs threat as something that “might” happen. But is it really still a hypothetical?
Not according to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, who just announced a slowdown or suspension of hiring for roles that might soon be replaced by A.I. Krishna explicitly referenced back-office positions such as those in human resources, saying he could “easily see” around 7,800 roles “getting replaced by A.I. and automation over a five-year period.”
So much for the “copilot” rhetoric that is commonplace when promoting A.I. these days. Indeed, less than two weeks ago, Fortune carried a commentary piece from a prominent tech CEO who said his company’s human resources team had experienced “firsthand” how A.I. was tackling “the kind of tasks most people find repetitive, which frees up employees to take on higher-value work.”
That CEO was—you guessed it—Arvind Krishna. From his piece:
“With the help of IBM’s own A.I., we’re beginning to automate key steps of what was a very manual process. Piloting this technology within IBM itself, we have been able to shift from 700 professionals doing a relatively manual type of HR-related work, to less than 50. That’s freed up a very significant number of people to spend more time providing important talent-related services, such as career guidance and support for managers, which requires thought and creativity, rather than doing routine paperwork.”
Turns out some of those workers might find themselves rather more comprehensively freed up in the near future. It really is all happening so fast.
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David Meyer
Data Sheet’s daily news section was written and curated by Andrea Guzman.
