IBM CEO believes AI will primarily impact white-collar jobs, but will not displace them

White-collar jobs will be among the first to be affected by artificial intelligence, IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna said.

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Krishna said that generative AI and large language models have the potential to "make the corporate process more productive."

"That means you can get the same work done with fewer people. That’s just the nature of productivity. I actually believe that the first set of roles that will get impacted are — what I call — back office, white-collar work", he said.

Krishna added that "demographic disinflation" is leading to a decline in the working-age population. Unless labour productivity is increased, the quality of life will go down, he believes.

"AI, I think, is the only answer we got", Krishna added.

In May, it was revealed that IBM plans to suspend hiring for positions it believes artificial intelligence could replace. According to Krishna, it is talking about 7,800 jobs.

"So what I said was, we are not going to backfill those [white-collar] roles for the next five years. But you get digital labor or AI bots, augmenting and working alongside their fellow humans doing that work. So that is where the 7,800 [number] came from" That'"So what I said was, we are not going to backfill those [white-collar] roles for the next five years. But you get digital labor or AI bots, augmenting and working alongside their fellow humans doing that work. So that is where the 7,800 [number] came from"," Krishna said.

Source: CNBC