AI has already taken your job, resistance is futile?

With AI and automation becoming increasingly more relevant for businesses and individuals, it is safe (or unsafe?) to say that there will be a major shift in the workplace in years to come.

9-5 is for suckers

The last 30 years or so have shown that with technology, sloth has taken over the workplace and "the lazy method" has only increased:

• People go to college instead of trade school
• People can work from anywhere
• People take their sweet time for "work-life balance"

These all have created a hotbed for employers, where in some parts of the world, youth unemployment has gone up to 22% of that population's cohort.

This has created a shortage of working hands, exacerbated by 2 years of COVID-19 restrictions and working from home, and 3 more years in which "quiet quitting" became as trendy as reality shows.

Such a problem has pushed companies to drastic measures, first with an added feature of automation in every aspect (in hardware as well as software) and further enhanced with AI, which became the hottest trend in over 30 years less than two years ago.

Birds of a (cybernetic) feather flock together

Since November 2022, AI systems have become so relevant that adoption levels of these systems reached 40% in fewer than two years, a feat which took the PC 12 years to reach.

Even the internet took around 5 years to reach similar adoption levels - this isn't something that is easily discarded as "trendy" - this is colossal.

Go Home, We got this!

Since 2021, around 562,000 people have lost their jobs in Big Tech, which accounts for 11.24% of the total workforce in those companies, roughly 40% more than the acceptable number in most downsizing operations.

But these employees weren't downsized, they were replaced by automation and AI and these numbers are only increasing, though lower in non-tech companies, where jobs in finance, customer service and manufacturing have been impacted the most at 22,000 positions, 25,000 positions and 20,000 positions, respectively.

Who is to blame?

Though the adoption rate of AI is alarming and the pink slips are mounting, it didn't happen in a vacuum.

The lack of working hands due to 30 years of selective reproduction, overall sloth in the form of Quiet Quitting and Lazy Lady syndromes, as well as the cost of living in most major metropolitan areas of the globe (mostly in the West), have contributed to the rise of AI and automation (including robotics) which threatens to disrupt and kick out most employees out of their respective fields, from white collar to pink to blue.

Can this be stopped? Not really

AI and automation have reached the Congressional level and even legislators are not interested in changing anything, other than protecting people's privacy, something which the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, isn't interested in pushing forward.

The EU AI Act is also set to impede scientific research in Europe, as AI is not only used to replace employees but to discover new drugs such as new antibiotics, and new EV batteries, solve DNA mysteries and more.

What can employees do?

Employees must learn how to harness AI and automation for their work, as more and more companies are going leaner with 25%-50% of the original workforce now augmented with AI and automation.

This, though, does mean that the entrepreneurial spirit could create new jobs and companies, as a quarter to half of those employees now have the potential to build their own businesses and hire others, which could help the economy.

Taking AI For A Spin! ?????

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#ai #layoffs #workforce #automation