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Will Articial Intelligence Create an Employment Crisis?
Mrs. Juliet Y. K.
Associate Professor

AI As a Threat
AI has created a threat among human workers as AI based robots seem to be taking over the world. It is foreseen that AI may make the
human workers of the world obsolete and unemployable. It is an cipated that if a company inducts 20% robots into its workforce, then
there's a chance of 1.6% loss of jobs. It is calculated that AI machines will replace 40% of jobs a er a decade and a half and when AI is used
for manufacturing and processing works, the human workers are made redundant. According to the World Intelligence Congress, AI,
Virtual Personal Assistants and Chatbots will replace almost 69% of a Manager's workload by 2024. It is undeniable that AI operated
machines or robots or computers are super-efficient and can well outperform human beings in terms of work performance,
communica on skills and economic genera on. As Stephen Hawking rightly observed: “The development of full ar ficial intelligence
could spell the end of the human race…. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans who are
limited by slow biological evolu on, couldn't compete, and would be superseded.”
AI is a threat to the liberty and autonomy of the engineers, doctors, ar sans, teachers and mechanics…. to name a few. It exceeds an
expert's intelligence in terms of analy c skills, intellectual ac vity, language learning or transla on, face and voice recogni on etc. and
jus fies the human fear of being displaced by their own scien fic inven ons and discoveries. Instances in point are IBM's "Deep Blue", a
type of AI-based machine which beat Gary Kasparav, the interna onal grandmaster of the 1990s; Tesla's self-driving car which can control
and manage its speed and direc on; “Sophia” by Hanson Robo cs which is a human look-alike which carries out all human tasks; Roomba
vacuum cleaner, which is based on an advanced laser-driven naviga on technology; prosthe cs and robo c exoskeletons that are used by
workers who work under risky situa ons/environments to save themselves from injuries and “Pill Pak” of Amazon which ships medicines
for a pa ent, refills medical stock and even calls a Doctor for clarifica ons on the prescrip on. Furthermore, in a school in UK, Face
Recogni on System (FRS) is used to provide meals to the students and in Saudi Arabia, the robot 'Sophia' has even been given ci zenship.
Fei-Fei Li's declara on, “If our era is the next industrial Revolu on, as many claim, AI is surely one of its driving forces” is certainly
prophe c.
The Posi ve Impact of AI on Employment
The amazing precision and faultless performance of robots; their indefa gable capacity and ability to endlessly sustain monotonous
tasks; their speed and promptness and their usability in hazardous situa ons, as for instance to diffuse a bomb certainly gives them an
edge over human beings. It is ironical that the crea on has outclassed its creators.

The Nega ve Impact of AI on Employment
On the flipside however, the growing threats of AI include unemployment, retrenchment, an increasing irresponsibility among human
beings; a decline is crea vity; a loss of privacy and personal space and a most avoidable social distancing where a virtual Alexa and Siri
have become ubiquitous companions. Of course, the chances of misuse of AI are high; its maintenance is costly and with it criminal and
terrorist ac vi es have become easy to execute.
How AI Will Affect Employment?
Andrew Ng. aptly commented, “It is difficult to think of a major industry that AI will not transform. This includes healthcare, educa on,
transporta on, retail, communica on and agriculture.” AI-based machines diagnose diseases more accurately, perform surgeries faster
and safer than their human counterparts and with the growth of technology more affordable too.. Hence, it will be no surprise if flesh-
and-blood doctors become obsolete in the near future. AI is well entrenched in the pharmaceu cal industry and may well make
pharmacy a profession of the past. AI-driven robots have made inroads in the fields of Hospitality, Tourism, and Security and with cloud
compu ng in Courier services too. Data entry is usually a mammoth task when managed by humans, but when AI takes over bulks of data
can be effortlessly and speedily entered. Proofreading as an assignment also stands threatened with AI-powered machines that spell
check and guide with punctua ons. To quote Jensen Huang in rela on to this scenario, “It's very clear that AI is going to impact every
industry. I think that every na on needs to make sure that AI is part of their na onal strategy. Every country will be impacted.”

The ray of hope however is that robots are devoid of reasoning, imagina on and emo onal intelligence and can never encroach the
crea ve realms of authors and poets or enter the field of law where reasoning rules. It cannot work on its own and cannot evolve and
mature like humans. At best, it can only mimic certain human expressions and augment human skills, but it cannot overtake humans. To
quote Stephen Bussey, “AI will always need human inputs to govern the ethical considera ons of leaving decisions up to the bits and bytes
inside a computer algorithm.” And, while AI may ini ally result in unemployment it will subsequently create job opportuni es of another
kind. According to Accountancy firm PWC, over 7 million jobs will be displaced by AI between 2017 and 2037. However, it will also lead to
the genera on of 7.2 million jobs, which is a net gain of 2,00,000 jobs.
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