We’ve long had our doubts about tech leaders making boisterous claims about automating jobs with AI.
For a while now, executives have raised eyebrows by justifying sweeping layoffs by arguing that AI had made thousands of roles redundant. But as reality settles in and the tech’s real-world capabilities are coming into focus, some in the industry are starting to sing a dramatically different tune.
Most recently, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang scorned other executives for wrongly justifying layoffs with AI — and telling them to cut it out. The hidden implication: soaring costs are the real culprit, especially when it comes to AI-related spending, mismanagement, and over-hiring.
“The narrative that connects AI to job loss, for many of the CEOs that are doing it — it is just too lazy,” Huang told Channel News Asia. “AI has just arrived, how is it possible they’re already losing jobs?”
“How is it possible that AI became productive and useful only six months ago, and they were somehow laying people off two years ago because of AI?” he added. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Huang didn’t beat around the bush in his searing comments.
“It was just a way for them to sound smart and I really hate that,” the CEO argued. “I think we’re scaring people, and that’s irresponsible.”
We’ve long suspected that CEOs have been trying to mislead investors by claiming that much human labor was simply no longer needed in the age of AI. In one particularly telling episode earlier this year, Twitter founder and Block Inc (formerly Square) CEO Jack Dorsey announced he was slashing his company’s workforce by “nearly half,” citing the emergence of “intelligence tools” that are “accelerating” changes.
Former staffers quickly threw cold water on his claims, arguing the layoffs were actually the result of over-hiring, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead of a dramatic rise in productivity, what’s far more likely is that companies are draining their pockets by making enormous investments in AI. That’s especially pertinent as the cost of accessing AI cloud computing resources continues to soar, forcing companies to slow down hiring.
To Huang, it’s the result of a lack of ambition, more than anything else. He also remains hopeful about AI ultimately leading to more jobs, not fewer.
“It’s more likely that the companies with ambition will be more productive, they will do things faster, their company will increase in velocity,” he told Channel News Asia. “As a result, they become larger, more profitable. When they become larger, more profitable, they’ll end up hiring more people.”
“Of course, they’ll use more AI, but they will also hire more people,” he added.
It’s a shift in messaging. Just last year, Huang warned in a CNN interview that “if the world runs out of ideas, then productivity gains translates to job loss” and that “everybody’s jobs will be affected” while “some jobs will be lost.”
Huang isn’t alone in dismissing AI layoffs. Just last week, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis accused leadership at other companies of a “lack of imagination” for blaming layoffs on AI.
In short, it’s a harsh reality check that flies in the face of ongoing narratives being pushed by executives desperately trying to convince investors that unprecedented levels of spending are justified.
“This is not a minor disagreement about messaging,” marketing publication State of Brand wrote. “This is the people selling the shovels telling the miners to stop blaming the shovels for the cave-in.”
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