NEW YORK: The tech giant’s CEO has said International Business Machines (IBM) will freeze hiring as it anticipated about 7,800 jobs to be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) in future.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Arvind Krishna said that he could “easily see” nearly one-third of the company’s non-customer-facing roles being replaced by AI in the upcoming five years.
Krishna said: “These non-customer-facing roles amount to roughly 26,000 employees and I could see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and other automation over five years.”
Back-office workers are only a small portion of IBM’s 260,000 workers. According to Bloomberg, IBM, based in New York in Armonk, has continued to fill roles even after letting go of about 5,000 employees in other areas.
IBM didn’t respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment
IBM didn’t immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment. The IBM said there was no blanket hiring pause but that the firm was “very selective when filling jobs that do not directly touch our clients and technology”.
Krishna’s comments come as the quick advancement of AI-induced technology, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, raises the possibility of massive disruption to several industries.
Some analysts expressed the fear that AI could soon lead to mass layoffs. In contrast, others argue that technology’s ability to improve productivity and complement human employees will create jobs and new industries.
The share price of Chegg, the California-based learning firm, plunged by nearly 50% after its Dan Rosensweig CEO acknowledged on the earnings call that ChatGPT was “having an impact on our latest customer growth rate”.
