Contrary to global fears, few workers believe that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will take away their jobs, a new survey claimed on Wednesday. The survey of more than 5,000 people from across the US, the UK and Australia by global professional services firm Genpact showed a striking gap in views about AI’s impact on their current roles versus the expected impact on the future workforce.
Only 10 per cent of people surveyed strongly agreed that AI threatens their jobs today. However, nearly everyone (90 per cent of respondents) believes younger generations need new skills to succeed as AI becomes more prevalent at the workplace. “Artificial intelligence brings a seismic shift in the future of work – making some roles obsolete and enhancing others, while at the same time, creating new jobs, and even spawning new professions,” said Sanjay Srivastava, Chief Digital Officer, Genpact.
“Businesses that will succeed in this new world will be those that ramp up fast to invest in the right AI tools and upskill their workforce,” he added. In the survey, a little more than half of respondents (54 per cent) were classified as workers, being employed at least part-time, while the remainder were students, retired or currently unemployed. While only 28 percent of all respondents worry about AI’s threat on their current jobs, most (58 per cent) fear AI’s impact on their children’s and future generations’ career opportunities.
A third of workers surveyed worry that they will not have the money or time for necessary retraining to help them work with AI. Only a quarter of companies currently help their employees take advantage of AI, and just a little more than a third provide reskilling to address technology disruption, the survey noted.
Forty per cent of all workers surveyed indicate they would be comfortable working with robots within the next three years.
“The big question is how to effectively encourage and adopt human-machine collaboration,” said Srivastava. “And the key is in a top-down culture that embraces AI, learning, and training at all levels, within a comprehensive change management framework.”
