Retrenchment and replacement supervision
Germany's Generali is reported to be cutting 800 jobs by 2030 and reorganizing its business around AI. U.S. Department of Agriculture IT executives say human oversight of AI will be difficult to maintain due to attrition. AI adoption is expanding into employment, finance, and mental health applications. The difference between a decision to rush its introduction and a decision to postpone it is not so much the magnitude of the effect, but rather whether it is possible to maintain people's supervision and support. This half-day article can be read to confirm whether these conditions are met in the areas of employment, financial markets, emotional support, safety monitoring, and diagnostic imaging.
Germany's Generali is reported to be cutting 800 jobs by 2030 and reorganizing its business around AI (Menafn). In the United States, concerns about mass layoffs due to AI have led Congress to explore ways to support workers (The New York Times). The layoff movement has figured in both corporate planning and political agendas. On the other hand, the numbers are not aligned in one direction. Based on a survey by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, it is reported that many small and medium-sized businesses in Oklahoma have reported an increase in employment due to the introduction of AI (KSWO 7News). Even if the same AI is employed, the way it is employed differs between the restructuring plans of large companies and the workplace of small and medium-sized enterprises. It is dangerous to apply one or the other example to your company, ignoring your company's size and industry.
When reductions proceed, the issue will be less about the number of people and more about what the people who remain will be able to do. An IT executive at the U.S. Department of Agriculture said "human oversight" of AI will be difficult to maintain due to staffing cuts (FedScoop). It has been pointed out that even if AI is introduced with the assumption that humans will be responsible for checking the output of AI and preventing errors, that assumption will collapse if the number of people responsible for that role is reduced. From this point of view, the decision to estimate the cost-effectiveness of introduction based solely on the number of people that can be reduced must be reconsidered.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) is also focusing on worker rights, asking who gets a say when AI runs workplaces (Devdiscourse). The question here is whether there is a system in place for workers to express their opinions when AI makes decisions about placement and evaluation. Securing supervisory staff and giving workers a voice may seem to be separate issues, but both relate to the same issue: whether humans can continue to be involved in AI decisions.
