Ever wondered what it’s like to be a tech columnist like myself? Of course not. Still I’m here to tell you that these days it feels a lot like that “supercuts” video of Google CEO Sundar Pichai that is doing the rounds: just saying artificial intelligence (AI) repeatedly until you sound like a parody of Old MacDonald had a farm.
The video, which went viral a few weeks ago, shows Pichai at the company’s development conference saying “AI” and “generative AI” over and over and over. It was inspired by the factoid that Pich[AI] — as some smarty-pants in the YouTube comments nicknamed him — cited the exciting tech 34 times in his opening statement on the most recent Alphabet earnings call. To put that in perspective, during 2022’s announcement AI got name-dropped in just five instances.
Pichai says Google is “at an exciting inflection point” and so is the world. For Google that means “reimagining all our core products”. But beyond that it means reimagining the world, especially the world of work. As much as companies seem excited about unlocking the revenue streams AI-driven tools may provide, the first big shift driven by our newfound generative AI capabilities seems to be one of budget cuts and existential dread — particularly around the threat of “weapons of mass job destruction”.
There is plenty of evidence that the uncomfortable transition everyone is expecting has begun at a big firm near you, or will do so shortly. In early May IBM confirmed to Bloomberg that it was slowing or stopping the recruitment of people for “back-office” roles that AI could fulfil, particularly in human resources. CEO Arvind Krishna said he could imagine replacing 30% of that division over a five-year period, roughly 7,800 jobs. Business Insider says an IBM spokesperson clarified that incumbents would not be fired, but that the company will not fill roles as they are vacated.
BT (formerly British Telecom) announced in mid-May that it wants to cut between 40,000 and 55,000 jobs — mostly in the UK — by the end of the decade. BT is the UK’s largest broadband and mobile provider. Among other things (projects ending, restructuring, reduced maintenance), it estimates that 10,000 of those cuts will be a result of AI adoption.
Every industry is expected to be shaken, starting with the designers, marketers, coders, accountants and lawyers — or broadly the “middle tier of white-collar jobs”, as MIT economist David Autor told The Atlantic.
Goldman Sachs economists Joseph Briggs and Devesh Kodnani put out a report in April that led with the promise of a 7% increase in global GDP and 1.5 percentage point lift in productivity growth in the next 10 years. The “dismal scientists” also offered this prettily wrapped hand-grenade: “Shifts in workflows triggered by these advances could expose the equivalent of 300-million full-time jobs to automation.”
I’ve written before how frustrating it is that AI is at present and foremost a direct threat to creatives. These are the professionals that (typically) are not coining it, are not given the respect they deserve, yet despite the business world’s disdain kept us going through the darkest days of the hard lockdowns.
The meagre silver lining is that the less repetitive your output is, the harder it is to tag in generative AI and show you the door. I was giving a talk on this recently when an audience member asked if ChatGPT is capable of writing cryptic crossword clues. “Let’s see,” I replied. We plugged in a prompt, tried again, but though at first glance the answers provided followed the structure of crossword clues, they were senseless. So, if you are feeling threatened, find a niche that demands complex, abstract and even playful thinking, because AI cannot. Yet.
Soon, though, the world will shift from asking AI to remake a Lord of the Rings trailer in Wes Anderson format, and start looking at how to plug it into the more mundane, wiping whole cost centres off the books — great for the bottom line, potentially disastrous for the people. I expect that soon we shall be giving our drive-through orders to friendly chatbots, despite the early failures we’re seeing. Call centre workers and customer service are on the chopping block too.
Also in May, Italy announced plans for a €30m fund to help workers threatened by AI to retrain. Others — ranging from academics to Joe Shmoes — suggest the only option is to rethink the entire economic model, or make some urgent course adjustments. In The Atlantic in May, Annie Lowrey called for the implementation of an AI universal basic income before we’re all left panhandling for change from the last remaining knowledge workers, butchers, bakers and TikTok candlestick makers.
Where does that leave us in SA? We are in an increasingly precarious position because resistance to the mechanisation-transformation of certain industries in light of our godforsaken employment situation means we are on the back foot. And, our abject failure in equipping the majority of our children with even the bare minimum literacy skills, let alone programming and related subjects, will hold back even the next generation. An AI universal basic income? The government is likely to still be debating the merits and viability in 2055, via the interminable Zoom call that parliamentary sessions may yet become.
Certainly, those seeking to influence and drive policy — such as the brand-new SA AI Association — will have their work cut out for them. The organisation's stated aspiration is to encourage the adoption of AI for both commercial and social benefit, but the former is simply more straightforward than the latter at the moment, especially while regulators scramble to catch up.
Of course, not all of the AI-generated headlines paint such a gloomy vision of tomorrow. OpenAI’s Sam Altman told a US Senate subcommittee that he believes AI will make for better, less menial jobs. He emphasised the need to see AI as a tool, “not a creature”, over which “people have a great deal of control”, and to see this moment as part of “one long revolution”.
However, just a few weeks later Altman added his name to the latest open letter signed by AI leaders, in what Time calls the “most unified statement yet about the existential risks to humanity posed by the technology”. I guess it’s hard to appreciate your place in history while living it.
• Thompson Davy, a freelance journalist, is an impactAFRICA fellow and WanaData member.
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