Normally when we think about the rise of the machines and their destruction of our way of life, our minds would go to something like Terminator and a cruel, uncaring robot stomping on a human skull.
However, given the world is supposed to end not with a bang but with a whimper, perhaps it’s more fitting that AI will wipe us out by shuffling us out of jobs until we’re all broke.
Lots of workplaces are treating AI like their favourite new toy as they work out how best to use it, with many of their ideas based around how they can get the computer to do people’s jobs for them so they don’t need to keep hiring humans.
Of course, there are problems with getting rid of humans. AI still has a lot of development to go through, and just getting rid of people while expecting that technology can do their jobs without them has already left some places embarrassed as they realised why you need humans to do things.
New research by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) made for grim reading as they found that one in six employers (17 percent) were expecting to cut jobs and replace them with AI over the next year.
As for where these job losses are expected to land, there are seven sectors identified as most likely for the cuts to fall.
Admin
The biggest area businesses expect to shed staff is among the ranks of the clerical, administrative and junior management team members, as 62 percent of employers reckon the people sorting out all the admin will be downsized to make way for AI.
Management & sales teams
Next on the chopping block are managers, with 28 percent of companies expecting to shed some people from that layer of their workforce, while 27 percent reckon they’ll be slashing the sales and services teams and having AI pick up the slack.