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A tech billionaire says business leaders can’t afford to bother their employees about the impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce and the ways the technology will impact jobs more broadly.
People are “too smart” to accept that AI won’t change the way they do business and that no jobs will be eliminated because of the transformative nature of the technology, Jim Cavanaugh, CEO of Worldwide Technology (WWT), told CNBC.
WWT is an enterprise technology solutions company that focuses on services such as cloud computing, IT security, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and consulting services.
“If you think you’re going to try to spin this, that you’re going to tell employees that nothing is going to change, that everything is going to be fine, that’s just nonsense,” Kavanaugh said in an interview last week.
Kavanaugh noted that while there is no guide for how business leaders should communicate about disruptive macroeconomic events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on jobs, the CEO’s job is “to be as transparent as possible and always be honest with their employees about where they stand.”
With AI, “there will be all sorts of changes,” Kavanaugh added. “If I can give any advice, it’s that everyone should be students of AI and technology and not be afraid of it.”
While it’s certain that AI will impact the workforce, “none of us have a full idea of that,” he said. “If someone comes to you and says, ‘I can tell you exactly how this is going to impact jobs and how it’s going to impact everything we do,’ they’re lying. Because nobody knows.”
Kavanaugh stressed that he is, in general, optimistic when it comes to the positive effects of artificial intelligence and its ability to improve productivity.
“Sitting there and saying, ‘I’m going to try to pour cold water on this fire, I’m going to try to put it out and ignore it,’ that’s a complete mistake.”
“I believe in embracing AI and learning from it and being realistic about it,” Kavanaugh told CNBC. “Because there will be jobs that will be disrupted, there’s no question about that. But mostly, I really think it’s going to be an augmenter and an accelerator of what we all do.”
Cavanaugh founded WWT in 1990 with St. Louis, Missouri, entrepreneur David Steward as a technology equipment reseller. Today, WWT is a technology giant with $20 billion in annual revenue.
Kavanaugh's net worth is currently $7 billion, according to Forbes. Before co-founding the company, Kavanaugh represented the U.S. 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 United States and Europe, “about two-thirds of current jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation,” while generative AI “could replace up to a quarter of current work.”
But Kavanaugh isn’t the only one who sees positive impacts from AI in the workplace. Clara Shih, Salesforce’s head of AI, told CNBC that there are jobs that will disappear because of the disruptive impact of technology.
“The question of whether new technology will replace jobs is a question that has been asked all the time,” Shih said, pointing to the creation of automation tools in factories, agricultural vehicles and machinery, and the Internet as examples.
“There is a subset of jobs that will disappear,” Shih says. “The Internet has destroyed a lot of jobs. But then it has created new jobs that we couldn’t have imagined in 1999.”
Ultimately, AI will be a positive force in the world of work, creating new jobs, Shih says. However, the shape of our job descriptions may change.
“I think what we’re seeing today with AI is that everyone needs a new job description,” Shih said. “Most jobs won’t disappear, but every job will require a new job description.”
Last week, as part of its annual Dreamforce event, Salesforce unveiled a new AI platform called AgentForce. Companies can use the platform to build and customize their own AI “agents,” independent digital workers that can help with things like customer service and employee support.
Some companies have already begun to actively promote the benefits of AI in reducing their overall staffing needs. Swedish fintech company Klarna, for example, said last month that it had reduced its workforce from 5,000 to 3,800 in a single year thanks to AI, and then paid the remaining workers higher wages.
The “buy now, pay later” leader told the BBC it is looking to cut staff numbers to 2,000 next year by using artificial intelligence in areas such as marketing and customer service.
