Will AI Take Away Your Job? Yes, if you are not ready and here’s what you can do to be ready

Everywhere you look, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made deep inroads. Initially restricted to information technology ecosystem, now AI is doing things everywhere. Education, Banking, Governance, Law Enforcement, Manufacturing, Accounting & Finance, Architecture and so on. You name the field and there is an application of AI to do things faster, better and cheaper by often replacing human intervention.

This revelation obviously seems to be yelling at the top of its voice, saying AI will take over majority of human jobs in the months and years to come. While this is true and may seem alarming, the situation is not all that bad. Surprised? There is a bloodbath in the job market and I am saying the situation is not that bad?

Well, let me explain. In order to explain my point, I will have to take you back in time about 30 years, the late 80s or early 90s. Computers were making a mark and seemed to be crawling their way into every job, every office and every walk of life. I distinctly remember, the world was living in the same apprehension. Computers will take over humanity and most of us will lose our jobs to computers.

Sure computers did seem to take away many jobs initially. I can clearly recollect the biggest job loses were in the banks where employees were laid off because a single computer could replace many workers. Computers were hunting jobs like zombies in a city. They would raid offices, supermarkets or even households that were not ‘infected with computers’.

There was a lot of disruption and uncertainty but things started to settle down. As tempers calmed down and people began to realize that computers were not there to take away jobs and devastate careers but to facilitate and empower them. All they wanted of humans was not to hold a grudge but stretch a hand of friendship. As early adopters started exploring them, they discovered a whole world of possibilities together, provided humanity was ready to embrace the change.

Rest is history! Can we even imagine a world without computers today? Rather the absence of computers may seem nightmarish. It all happened when we discovered the endless possibilities with the computers working besides us, or if you will, on our commands.

In the end, computers ended up creating many times more jobs that initially took away. The only condition was people should be ready to accept computers, learn to work with them and leverage their vast potential to humanity’s benefit.

Will AI Take Away Jobs

It’s like a déjà vu for me. Same concerns, same defensive posturing and similar apprehensions about AI disrupting job markets, taking over roles and devastating lives and careers. There are even fears of AI completely taking over humanity and enslaving it for its own benefit. Nothing of that sort is going to happen. Humanity is an intelligent race and we have battled wild animals, natural calamities, diseases and nuclear weapons but still exist today, live and kicking so put that fear to rest.

How to Prevent AI Taking Away Your Job

However, one thing is crystal clear, even from historical perspective. Those who adapt, adopt and evolve will flourish while those who are stiff and resist will perish. Even if AI is raiding our homes and offices and taking away livelihoods, the hijack is temporary and once the dust settles, you will find new avenues opening up provided you are ready to walk.

What you need to do is stop resisting the change and start adopting. There are hundreds if not thousands of roles emerging to benefit from the endless possibilities of AI. However, you need to upgrade yourself to be an AI literate in this era. There are courses in prompt engineering, AI training, AI applications, AI ethics, privacy and security, AI-Assisted Design, AI Auditing and many more. It is very similar to the 80s and 90s when people enrolled for various short and long term courses to upskill themselves in computers and their applications.

Similarly, in today’s paradigm those who embrace AI and upskill themselves to remain relevant in the AI-driven world will float as the creamy layer and the ones who refuse or miss boarding the bus will perish.

Remember, humanity is very enterprising and resourceful. It has overcome every obstacle or a threat in the history of its evolution and turned it into an advantage and we will surely turn this too to our advantage!