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Company leaders don’t “bulls—” their employees about the impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce and the ways the technology will affect jobs more broadly, according to tech billionaires.
Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology (WWT), told CNBC that people are “too smart” to accept that AI will not change the way they manage their work and that no jobs will be eliminated due to technological change.
WWT is a business technology solutions provider specializing in services such as cloud computing, IT security, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and consulting services.
“If you think you’re going to try to play this down, and that you’re going to tell the staff that nothing’s going to change, and everything’s going to be fine, that’s BS,” Kavanaugh said in an interview last week.
Kavanaugh noted that, although there is no playbook on how business leaders should communicate with disruptive macro-economic events, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on jobs, the CEO’s job is “to be as transparent as possible and remain honest in their actions. employees about where they stand. “
With AI, “there will be all kinds of changes,” Kavanaugh said. “If I can give any advice, it’s that everyone should be a student of AI and tech and not be afraid.”
Although given AI will have an impact on the workforce, “none of us know everything completely,” he said. “If anybody comes in and tells you, ‘I can tell you exactly how this is going to affect jobs and how it’s going to affect everything we do,’ they’re lying. Because nobody knows.”
Kavanaugh emphasized that, overall, he is optimistic when it comes to the positive effects of AI and its ability to improve productivity.
“To sit there and say I’m going to try to pour cold water on the fire, I’m going to try to put it out and ignore it,” is a complete mistake.
“I believe in acceptance [AI] and learning and being honest about it. Because there will be jobs that will be disrupted, there is no question about that. But, for the most part, I really believe it’s going to enhance and accelerate what we’re all doing,” Kavanaugh told CNBC.
Kavanaugh founded WWT in 1990 with another St. Louis businessman. Louis, Missouri David Steward as a technical equipment salesman. Today, WWT is a technology giant in its own right, generating $20 billion in annual revenue.
Kavanaugh currently has a net worth of $7 billion, according to real-time data from business news magazine Forbes. Before founding the company, Kavanaugh represented the US national soccer team at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Is AI a job destroyer, or a job creator?
The paper also noted that, in the US and Europe, “about two-thirds of current jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation,” while productive AI “could replace one-quarter of current jobs.”
Kavanaugh is not alone in seeing positive results from the use of AI in the world of work. Clara Shih, Salesforce’s head of AI, told CNBC that there are jobs that will disappear due to technological disruption.
Whether new technology will replace jobs is “a question that’s been asked all the time,” Shih said, citing industrial automation, agricultural vehicles and machinery, and the Internet as examples.
“There are a lot of jobs that will end,” said Shih. “The Internet destroyed a lot of jobs. But then it created new ones that we couldn’t even imagine in 1999.”
Ultimately, AI will be a positive force in the world of work, leading to new jobs, according to Shih. However, what our job descriptions look like may change.
“I think what we’re seeing today with AI is that everybody needs a new job description,” Shih said. “Many jobs will not disappear, but all jobs will require a new definition of work.”
Last week, as part of its annual Dreamforce event, Salesforce introduced a new AI platform, called AgentForce. Companies can use the platform to build and customize their own AI “agents,” autonomous digital workers who can help with things like customer service and employee support.
Some companies have been actively demonstrating the benefits of AI in reducing their overall workforce needs. For example, Swedish fintech company Klarna said last month that it was able to reduce its workforce from 5,000 to 3,800 in one year thanks to AI, and then pay its remaining employees more.
The “buy now, pay later” pioneer has told the BBC it is looking to reduce its workforce next year, to 2,000 people, by using AI in areas such as sales and customer service.