Artificial intelligence, or AI, is seemingly leading the world to a grim future – at least in some aspects. While AI is providing many benefits for businesses across the globe, this technology is also proving to be a threat in the world of employment.
Earlier this week, the International Business Machines Corporation, popularly known as IBM, together with SAP SE, announced that IBM Watson® technology is going to be embedded into SAP® solutions to offer new insights driven by AI and automation to help bolster innovation, and create user experiences that are more effective and efficient across the SAP solution portfolio.
IBM Watson is actually a data analytics processor that utilizes natural language processing, a form of technology capable of analyzing human speech for meaning and syntax. IBM Watson technology performs analytics on a wide range of data repositories which it processes to respond to questions from humans, often only in a fraction of a second.
Meanwhile, SAP solutions refer to a centralized platform wherein the data of businesses are stored, organized, and processed in meaningful manners. With a centralized system of information and data management, business data are maintained within a central location, and various departments in the business can access them.
This project is only one of the many initiatives from IBM that use AI. But there’s a caveat. Together with this announcement, IBM chief executive officer Arvind Krishna has also revealed insights about AI, saying that it could replace several jobs in less than a decade, including internally at IBM.
Krishna told news outlets, “I do believe, and I’ve said this before, that A.I. is going to replace many clerical white collar jobs and that’s the kind which I expect A.I. will replace over the next five years.”
The IBM CEO was joined by SAP SE chief executive officer Christian Klein for the recent deal between the two companies, but Klein also revealed devastating insights concerning AI. He said AI could take over several business activities, adding, “it’s about cost avoidance.”
“And then the second part is as long as you have a growing business and you are transforming your business, you need different skills. So this also allows you to re-skill your workforce, not to just cut your workforce, which is, I guess, also equally important,” the SAP SE CEO stated.
Krisha also disclosed that IBM would be using AI to replace 7,800 jobs over the next five years, or around 30 percent of IBM’s jobs that do not deal with facing customers.
Several experts and high-ranking officials in various fields have also previously spoken about AI’s impact on jobs and careers. For instance, Goldman Sachs predicted last March that worldwide, as many as 300 million jobs could be wiped out by AI.
Also, in a previous news report from this website, PVP Live, after Alphabet chief executive officer Sundar Pichai guested on CBS’ “60 Minutes” program, Pichai said AI could disrupt jobs that include knowledge workers like accountants, writers, architects, and even software engineers.
What do you think of this growing influence of AI? Is it good or bad?
