Arjun Sharda

Sources are showing evidence of executives laying off employees and replacing them with A.I. And it's not good for employees.

I'm Arjun Sharda. I'm a founder, full-stack developer, author, and speaker. Recently, there have been layoffs in various industries, notably in industries such as Technology and Healthcare.

As we see companies like Google, Disney, Uber, Microsoft, and many more companies, big and small, lay off employees, I can only hope that the employees that have been affected by the 2023 recession are able to find a job, and also wonder that, how are companies, especially in Technology, able to function without employees?

And the answer is - Artificial Intelligence. Ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in November 2022 for testing, it has got over 100 million users from November 2022 to January 2023. As of November 2023, it has almost 200 million users. As ChatGPT is now one years old, and newer tools like Bard, and Claude.ai are advancing, creating code is just one prompt away. In fact, there are about 58,000 A.I companies across the globe.

According to the IBM Global AI Adoption Index (2023), in which more than 7,500 businesses participated in the survey, 35% of companies use A.I every day. That's at least 2,625 businesses. 45% of companies are investigating how they can use A.I. That's at least 3,375 businesses. At least 80% of companies ARE aware of A.I and are interested in using A.I. And that is concerning.

A.I is linked to layoffs. According to a article by CNN writer Catherine Thorbecke, "IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in an interview with Bloomberg in May [2023] that the company expects to pause hiring for roles it thinks could be replaced with AI in the coming years." And, Dropbox has laid off people citing A.I. "In late April [2023], file-storage service Dropbox said that it was cutting about 16% of its workforce, or about 500 people, also citing AI."

And the layoffs by companies are hurting employees. Not the executives of companies. By laying off people and replacing them with A.I, they are able to cut down costs. And, the richer are getting richer. The company requires less maintenance, and a win-win scenario for the company and for the executives, all thanks to A.I. However, for employees who have been laid off, the poorer are getting poorer. And what other word describes this than Capitalism?

And what can we do about this?

Many people, especially programmers, offer their services on websites like Fiverr and Upwork, and freelance. Some do it as a side-gig until they find a job, or some even consider freelancing as their full-time job.

Everyone's trying to be creative to get bread for their family.

Thank you for reading my opinion on this topic. I hope you enjoyed this article. If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know here!