Alongside Greenland, artificial intelligence was the topic that dominated discussions at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this week. Charter was there again this year, hosting a session on AI leadership and reporting from a range of official and unofficial events. Here are a few takeaways:
- Executives are increasingly public about concerns that AI will result in significant job losses. “I think it’s possible that we see 20% to 30% unemployment levels over the next two to five years,” said Dan Schulman, who took over as CEO of Verizon last year and in November announced 13,000 job cuts. (The US telecom company said the cuts weren’t because of its use of AI.) Schulman believes AI could replace people faster than they can shift to doing other types of work. “To what will you reskill?” said Schulman. “Customer service stuff, most of that will go away. Programming, we know most of that will go away. Legal probably gets cut in half.”
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna argued that executives should be upfront with workers about AI-related job loss. At IBM, “there will probably be about 10% displacement, but we will have net addition,” he said. “That is something that has to get talked about.”
Schulman sees no other alternative for companies than to embrace AI and change quickly. Verizon created a $20 million fund for laid-off employees to get training and job placement to support their employability in the age of AI. In addition, “there are ways that we can work with the public sector and [think] about the different forms of taxation that can spread wealth out in different ways,” Schulman offered.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon argued for phasing in automation to avoid displacement, saying he’d welcome government bans on mass replacement of humans with AI if they were needed.
Not all executives in Davos said elevated unemployment is likely as a result of AI. Microsoft president Brad Smith, for one, proposed that humans who use AI could outpace AI’s advancements. “My goodness, are we not going to—as employers, as leaders—use technology as tools to help our employees get better themselves?” he said. “Of course we are.”
- Experts expressed special concern about the employment prospects for young workers. Stanford’s Erik Brynjolfsson said that people aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations experienced 16% relative employment declines, up from 13% when researchers studied it a few months earlier. That suggests “it could get a lot bigger in the next few months,” Brynjolfsson said. Microsoft’s Smith suggested companies could use apprenticeships, where they don’t expect entry-level workers to outperform AI at the start. “If we think that way, this might be the best time in any of our careers to hire the best young people we’ll ever meet,” he said. “Our competitors are not thinking this way and we might have the best young people three years out of college if we capitalize on this opportunity.”
- Political divisions are spilling into the workplace. Some 42% of employees globally would rather switch departments than work for someone with different values, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer released in Davos. Some 34% said they’d put in less effort if their project team leader had different political beliefs from them. A large majority of workers support having mandatory workplace training “for engaging in constructive dialogue amid conflict.”
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna argued that executives should be upfront with workers about AI-related job loss. At IBM, “there will probably be about 10% displacement, but we will have net addition,” he said. “That is something that has to get talked about.”
Schulman sees no other alternative for companies than to embrace AI and change quickly. Verizon created a $20 million fund for laid-off employees to get training and job placement to support their employability in the age of AI. In addition, “there are ways that we can work with the public sector and [think] about the different forms of taxation that can spread wealth out in different ways,” Schulman offered.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon argued for phasing in automation to avoid displacement, saying he’d welcome government bans on mass replacement of humans with AI if they were needed.
Not all executives in Davos said elevated unemployment is likely as a result of AI. Microsoft president Brad Smith, for one, proposed that humans who use AI could outpace AI’s advancements. “My goodness, are we not going to—as employers, as leaders—use technology as tools to help our employees get better themselves?” he said. “Of course we are.”