“I expect we will grow from our current engineering base even into next year because it allows us to do more with the opportunity space,” Pichai told Bloomberg Wednesday (June 4) in an interview conducted at the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco. “I just view this as making engineers dramatically more productive, getting a lot of the mundane aspects out of what they do.”
AI excels in coding but continues to make basic mistakes, Pichai said, per the report.
It was reported in July that AI was playing a role in tech sector job cuts. Some companies were replacing employees with AI bots, while others were replacing them with an equal number of new employees with AI expertise.
It was reported in January 2023 that Alphabet was cutting 12,000 jobs, about 6% of its workforce, as it faced “a different economic reality” and doubled down on AI.
In January 2024, Pichai said that employees could expect more job cuts as the company worked on “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas.”
The PYMNTS Intelligence report “GenAI: A Generational Look at AI Usage and Attitudes” found that 54% of workers in the United States believe that generative AI poses a “significant risk of widespread job displacement.”
The report found that 74% of workers who used generative AI frequently and 27% of those unfamiliar with specific platforms believe the technology could replace elements of their jobs. This perception was particularly high in the technology sector.
During a May 8 Senate hearing on the potential of AI, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was asked about his view that up to 70% of jobs could be eliminated by AI.
“Technological revolutions have impacted jobs and the economy for a long time, and some jobs go away; some new jobs get created,” Altman said. “Many jobs just get more efficient, and people are able to do more and earn more money and create more.”
It was reported Wednesday (June 4) that Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said that while Klarna had made fewer job cuts in engineering positions than in other roles, that trend could change because businesspeople, including himself, are learning to code. In his case, he’s doing so with the help of ChatGPT.
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