IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna told CNBC that white-collar positions are among those that will be affected earliest by AI. He stated that AI is a solution to decreasing workforce numbers in the context of declining working age populations, and that "it's not displacing — it's augmenting." He went on to say that with the help of AI, "we can create more GDP...we should all feel better about it."
Arvind Krishna, the chairman and CEO of IBM, told CNBC in an exclusive interview aired on Tuesday that white-collar jobs will be among the first to be impacted by artificial intelligence. He stated that generative AI and large language models have the potential to enable businesses to do more work with fewer people, and discussed the declining size of the working age population which necessitates productivity gains made through AI. IBM has been an early adopter of AI, having invested in and developed its own platform prior to the recent rise in demand for AI-powered chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT. This was additionally tied to the decision to move away from computer hardware in 2005, following the sale of its personal computer division to Lenovo.
In May, IBM unveiled WatsonX, an AI construction tool that facilitates customers to construct, train and deploy machine learning models. This was around 15 months after IBM disposed of its data and analytics segment Watson Health following years of financial losses. That same month, Bloomberg shared that IBM began to suspend recruiting for positions which might be fulfilled with robots and AI. That involved around 7,800 posts in departments like human resources that could be done through AI and automation, as Krishna reported at the time. In January, CNBC reported that IBM was planning to eliminate roughly 3,900 jobs. IBM and its separate entities have a total of 288,300 personnel in more than 175 countries, according to the company's 2022 annual report. "So what I mentioned was, we will not replenish those [professional] jobs for the next five years. But robotic labor or AI bots can be used, augmenting and working with their fellow humans to perform that work. That is where the 7,800 [quantity] derived from," Krishna told CNBC's Martin Soong.
Krishna stated in a CNBC interview in May that AI would be a net creator of jobs instead of replacing them. He explained that when more labor is available, such as through AI, GDP can be increased. In June, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong echoed these sentiments, adding that technology could even make humans more productive and create more jobs.
Krishna was enlisted with IBM in 1990, was appointed CEO in April 2020, and held the title of Chairman beginning in January 2021. In a notification sent to staff when he became CEO, he announced his intention to prioritize AI and hybrid cloud as the key technologies for the future.
During the firm's second quarter earnings call in July, Krishna frequently underscored the importance of AI in terms of IT operations, automation, customer service, HR and more. IBM's software division saw data and artificial intelligence products as its fastest growing segment. Krishna mentioned how Watson beat "Jeopardy!" contestants in 2011, citing it as representative of the resources and manpower needed to build one model. He then went on to explain how large-language models can utilize data without labeling in order to achieve a model that is extremely cost-effective and easy to update as needed. This breakthrough was what prompted Krishna to feel confident about commercializing and modifying AI.
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