Companies that Have Replaced Workers with AI
For all the scaremongering and bluster around AI stealing jobs, we haven’t seen too much impact of it to date. In fact it seems that many companies are instead choosing to provide AI tools to help make employees’ lives easier, rather than replace them outright.
However, there are certainly some stand out cases where humans have been ditched in favor of AI. Here at Tech.co, we’ve been tracking these as they happen, with the likes of IBM, MSN and Klarna all replacing human roles with AI.
In some instances, while AI has replaced roles, there have been no layoffs, as companies commit to upskill those affected workers and move them to different positions. This is the step that Ikea took when it introduced an AI bot named Billie to answer customer service queries. Call center workers have received training to become interior design advisors, instead.
Of course, replacing humans with AI can backfire. MSN’s AI platform has got its owners into hot water for posting inappropriate polls next to sensitive news stories and also described a recently deceased NBA basketball player Brandon Hunter as ‘useless at 42’. British delivery firm paused its AI customer bot after customers found it could easily be coaxed into swearing and criticizing the very company it worked for.
