Big Tech Companies Unite in New Consortium to Address Concerns of AI Job Displacement

The advent of AI technology has raised concerns about potential job losses in various industries, with notable instances such as UPS’s largest layoff attributed in part to new technologies including AI, as mentioned by CEO Carol Tomé. Similarly, IBM plans to pause hiring for roles it believes could be automated by AI, according to CEO Arvind Krishna.

This pessimism about the future of work is reflected in surveys, such as one from McKinsey where 25% of business professionals anticipate layoffs due to AI adoption. Reports indicate that thousands of workers have already lost their jobs to AI, and nearly half of managers polled in a survey by Beautiful.ai expressed intentions to replace workers with AI.

However, a consortium called the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium (ITC), led by Cisco with support from tech giants like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, SAP, and Accenture, aims to challenge the notion of widespread job losses due to AI. The consortium focuses on re-skilling and upskilling workers within the information and communication technology (ICT) industry.

The ITC plans to evaluate the impact of AI on 56 ICT job roles and provide training recommendations for affected roles. These roles were chosen for their strategic significance in the ICT ecosystem and AI’s impact on their tasks. The consortium aims to address the urgent need to understand AI’s impact on key job roles and facilitate access to AI-related training programs for workers. These efforts cover a significant portion of the ICT sector, including major countries like the U.S. and several European nations, with a combined ICT workforce of 10 million workers.