Can AI take your jobs away? Upskilling is the only way, say top HR executives

Are you worried that ChatGPT will take your job? There have been massive disruptions in the tech industry lately, and there is a growing fear that this Artificial Intelligence-backed chatbot and other similar applications will take over jobs as we know them.

As per a World Economic Forum (WEF) report, 97 million new jobs will be created by 2025 due to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation. Meanwhile, ChatGPT is the talk of the town and there is a rising fear that an AI capable of responding to prompts, questions, statements in a very human manner and in record time might be bad for the job market.

However, a global organisational consulting firm says there’s a need to get past the thinking that robots are taking human jobs.

Esther Colwill, President - APAC, Korn ferry, said “Humans plus machines is where we are now and it is the way forward. The more comfortable humans get with controlling the parameters, the more comfortable they'll get with tech.”

According to Kolwell, one will still have to be adept at asking the right questions of a bot like ChatGPT. She argues that if one can ask the right question, interprets and edits the answer, they’re using AI to help express themselves.

Ira Gupta, Head of Human Resources at Microsoft India, is of a similar view and adds that reskilling is of paramount importance — she says it is more cost effective too.

“Not only is it a cost-effective proposition, but skilling/reskilling is also going to enable us to attract and retain the talent that we need… nine out of 10 employees in India, in a Word Work Trend Index survey that Microsoft did in September of last year actually said that they would stay back at an organisation which they felt enabled them to learn for their career development,” she told CNBC-TV18.

Reflecting on the job roles that will be in demand over the next 10 years, given the pace of tech disruption, Korn Ferry's Colwill believes that data scientists will be in demand. However, critical thinking will be the key.

Most experts believe the next set of leaders will need non-technical skills. It's not about learning how to code or learning rote processes, but very human thinking about the end customer and what the business needs, they say.