Reducing costs is always on the mind of any business owner.
Some costs, like materials and production, are pretty static. Other costs are more malleable.
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When big companies like Meta and Alphabet want to save on costs, headcount is often one of the first places they look.
Meta is currently in the process of laying off about 3,600 employees, whom the company says are low performing.
The company says it is eliminating redundancies, and it’s true the tech sector went on a hiring spree during the pandemic. Now, however, it is replacing many of those positions with machine learning engineers.
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Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence focused on enabling machines to learn from data without explicit programming from humans.
In other words, Meta has been laying off workers to hire other workers to build products, which will eventually lead to more layoffs.
A 2023 ResumeBuilder survey showed that 37% of companies using AI replaced workers with the technology, and 44% anticipated more AI-induced layoffs in 2024.
Goldman Sachs estimates that AI could replace up to 300 million jobs. An MIT/Boston University study found that 2 million manufacturing jobs could be replaced by automated tools this year.
By 2030, 14% of employees are expected to have been forced to change their careers because of AI, according to McKinsey.
Nvidia is building chips for robots that will eventually replace human workers.
Image source: Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Fiverr CEO says ‘we’re all doomed’
Some people are worried about what an AI-driven world will look like. Other people are embracing the possibilities of an AI future.
One of those people welcoming AI with open arms is Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman. He recently sent a memo to employees that revealed his thoughts on the future.
“So here is the unpleasant truth: AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job, too. This is a wake-up call,” Kaufman wrote to his nearly 800 employees.
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“It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person — AI is coming for you.”
“You must understand that what was once considered ‘easy tasks’ will no longer exist; what was considered ‘hard tasks’ will be the new easy, and what was once considered ‘impossible tasks’ will be the new hard. If you do not become an exceptional talent at what you do, a master, you will face the need for a career change in a matter of months. I am not trying to scare you. I am not talking about your job at Fiverr. I am talking about your ability to stay in your profession in the industry,” Kaufman said.
Tech community pushes AI future
Fiverr is a company that pairs gig workers with people hiring, so its CEO’s prediction of mass upheaval in the labor force is a little ironic.
But Kaufman isn’t alone in his view of the future.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told the crowd at the World Government Summit in Dubai that coding may be dead as a career. Thanks to generative AI, programming will no longer be a vital skill in the future.
Microsoft Founder Bill Gates says that AI will replace humans “for most things.”
“The era we’re just starting is that intelligence is rare — a great doctor or a great teacher,” Gates said. “With AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace — great medical advice, great tutoring. It’s kind of profound because it solves all of these specific problems, like we don’t have enough doctors or mental health professionals. But it brings with it so much change.”
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