Not all intelligence is artificial
BarcelonaAs always when a new technology or advance emerges, with great changes and increasingly accelerated (radio, television, internet...), the stages are burned out faster and faster. And there are fears about the impact on the labor market. It has started to happen with artificial intelligence (AI), the big current issue. Several studies, from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), among others, have analyzed it. Some are more apocalyptic than others, but, in any case, AI is already an argument to reduce staff and gain more margins and profitability.
The most recent case is that of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, which plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, around 8,000 people, to offset its AI expenses. But there are more. The consultancy Capgemini has initiated negotiationsto reduce up to 748 jobs, 7% of its workforce in Spain, and one of its arguments is "the acceleration of technological change, the evolution of customer needs, and the need to adapt organizational capabilities to ensure the economic and operational sustainability of the company in the medium and long term".
A very different industry, such as food, also resorts to it to plan layoffs. This is the case of Nestlé, an international giant, which plans to cut up to 301 jobs in Spain as a consequence of "rising operating expenses and changing consumer habits," which involve moving towards "automation and digitalization".
With the launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI in 2022, there were economists who considered it difficult for AI to destroy many jobs. They saw it as a tool to improve repetitive processes and tasks. But things have been changing as the new technology and its possibilities and potential have advanced.
And in this context, as has also happened with other advances, jobs disappear, but new ones and new companies are born —especially in the US, not so much in Europe, unfortunately—. The issue is to have the capacity to adapt the educational and business system to market needs and not to use AI as an excuse to cover up poor management. In short, to make the most of AI's capabilities, natural intelligence must also be used appropriately.
