In addition to layoffs in the tech industry, artificial intelligence has been added to the list of things employees are worried about, with ChatGPT revealing its capabilities.
The tech industry laid off 5% more workers this year than in 2022 as a whole, Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported. The layoff rate is on track to beat the job loss figures of 2001, the worst year for tech layoffs due to the dot-com boom.
As layoffs continue to rise, employees fear not only being laid off, but also the complete disappearance of their jobs. A recent Goldman Sachs report showed that 300 million jobs worldwide are affected by AI and automation.
According to Sultan Saidov, co-founder and president of Beamery, a human capital management software company, ChatGPT and artificial intelligence should not arouse fear among employees because these tools will help people and companies work more efficiently.
“It is already estimated that 300 million jobs will be affected by AI and automation,” Saidov said. “The real question is: Does this mean that these people will change their jobs or lose their jobs?
ChatGPT is a type of GPT tool that uses learning models to generate human-like responses, and Saidov says GPT technology can help employees do more than just chat. Particularly in the tech industry, certain jobs are affected more than others.
Saidov points to designers, video game developers, photographers and similar jobs in the tech industry as jobs that probably won’t go away completely. But he says GPT technology will help create more of these roles and get things done faster.
Saidov “If you look back at the industrial revolution, when you suddenly had automation in agriculture, did that mean fewer people would do certain jobs in farming?” he asks, and he answers himself: “Absolutely, because you won’t need as many people in that area, but that means the same number of people will go to different jobs.” Just like similar trends in history, creative jobs will be in demand after generative AI and other AI technologies are widely incorporated into workplaces.
More games, more work
Saidov said, “As far as video game developers are concerned, if the number of games made worldwide doesn’t change from year to year, you’re probably going to need fewer game designers. But if you can create more as a company, then this technology will increase the number of games you can make.”
Because of ChatGPT, many software developers and engineers are worried about job security, causing some to look for new skills and learn how to design productive AI and add those skills to their resumes.
“It is unfair to say that GPT will completely eliminate jobs like developers and engineers,” says Sameer Penakalapati, CEO of Ceipal, an AI-driven talent acquisition platform. But while these jobs continue to exist, their duties and responsibilities are likely to be reduced by GPT and productive AI.
There’s an important distinction to be made between GPT in particular and productive AI in the broader sense when it comes to the job market, Penakalapati said. While GPT is a mathematical or statistical model designed to learn patterns and provide results, other forms of generative AI go a step further, reconstructing different outcomes based on patterns and learning, and can almost mimic a human brain.
Penakalapati says that what might take days or weeks for a human to produce can be uncovered by GPT in much less time.
However, as development and engineering roles quickly adapt to these tools in the workplace, he also notes that it will be impossible for tools to completely replace humans. Most likely, we will see a reduction in the number of developers and engineers required to create a piece of software.
“Whether you are writing a piece of code, testing how users interact with your software, or designing software and choosing certain colors from a color palette, you will always need someone, a human, to assist the process,” Penakalapati says.
Emphasizing that currently employees cannot remember a time when they did not have tools such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word, experts state that in some respects, AI and GPT tools will play a similar role, and a business world without them cannot be imagined in the future.
In summary, artificial intelligence is not a threat to the human workforce for now, and on the contrary, it can be considered as a helper. As things get easier thanks to artificial intelligence, we will have the opportunity to produce more and we will be able to do this with the existing workforce.
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