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A wave of layoffs at major global technology companies is coming——

In April, Tesla announced global layoffs of more than 10%, based on the total headcount last year. , and at least 14,000 people will be laid off;

In August, Intel announced that it would lay off 15,000 people globally, equivalent to 15,000 employees. 5%, and is required to be completed before the end of the year;

Following the revelation that Dell laid off 25,500 people in two years, communications giants Cisco and Nokia reported layoffs of 2,000 and 8,000 people, leaders in the domestic AI field Players Hikvision and SenseTime also reported laying off thousands of employees...

According to layoff tracking agency According to data provided by Layoffs.fyi, as of December 2, global technology companies will lay off at least 149,000 people in 2024.

Why are major technology companies gathering to lay off employees this year?

In addition to the impact of the economic environment, there is another factor that is overlooked, that is, the bosses have found a better "cow horse" -

AI.

The latest data from LinkedIn shows that the job market with six-figure salaries is facing a "white-collar recession" wave:

IT recruitment fell by 27%, quality assurance positions fell by 32%, and product management fell by 23%. % Project management is down 25%, and engineering, once considered the most recession-proof job, is also down. 26%

A fierce wave of artificial intelligence replacing artificial intelligence is sweeping across all walks of life. Surprisingly, white-collar workers who once proudly sat in office buildings coding are bearing the brunt.

The McKinsey Global Institute report predicts that a large part of this replacement wave will be completed by 2030.

The window period left for ordinary people may only be 5 years.

Where should the 200 million white-collar workers in China go?

Recently, a piece of news from foreign media has made white-collar workers feel that their jobs are insecure. Jon Bach, who worked at eBay for 13 years and was a former director, was fired in January this year. To make matters worse, the road to job hunting after leaving the company is extremely bumpy.

After applying for 1, 2, 10, 50, and 135 positions, Bach only received 2 callbacks and no offer notice.

"I don't know what happened", the experienced Bach was confused.

Something even more depressing has happened. The latest data from LinkedIn shows that the job market with six-figure salaries is facing a "white-collar recession." Foreign media described, "In Silicon Valley, no matter what the economic situation is, cutting these positions is almost unthinkable.

But things really happened, and it was not a simple sentence that made them withdraw from the stage. The economy is not doing well, the performance is not good, and there are products that coders have built with bald hair: ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools.

The coders will not think that they may "die" on their own. The people who marketed and promoted the product.There are no exceptions, and there are more and more people like Bach.

For example, at the beginning of this year, "Duolingo", the world's largest foreign language learning community, is experiencing its best period of development in history, with its revenue and stock price at all-time highs.

At this juncture, it was revealed that thousands of contract translators were laid off and replaced by AI.

An employee who has worked at Duolingo for 5 years shared online: "The team originally had four core members, two of them were fired, and the remaining two are only responsible for reviewing artificial intelligence content." .

IBM has also been laying off employees continuously in the past two years. Not only has it laid off employees, it has also suspended recruitment. Its CEO Arvind Krishna said that 8,000 jobs will be replaced with artificial intelligence.

You may also think that this all happened abroad and is still far away from us. No.

Wu Bin, a Tsinghua entrepreneur who is engaged in AI commercialization, released a set of facts:

Today we see all e-commerce platforms and leading clothing companies, such as men’s clothing Youngor, Victor, women's clothing Qiushui, Sancai, Jiangnan Buyi, 80% of the pictures and videos are not produced manually. Photography, art, editing, typesetting, and operation have all been replaced by AI.

Picture source: "Cheng Qian Moments"

He introduced a clothing company he cooperated with: there used to be a team of 40 people. After the introduction of AI tools, the company "cut down" the team to only the remaining 5 people were responsible for operating AI software. In the end, the company found that even 5 people were too many, so it simply outsourced the business completely to the AI ​​company, leaving only 0 people in the team.

Although it is cruel, Wu Bin said frankly: "If it can't even replace people, how do you judge it as a cost reduction tool?

It's not a nice word, but it is Revealed a reality: AI replaces humans, the most important thing It's still a matter of cost. It's cheaper and more efficient. What reason do bosses have to refuse?

It's just that the white-collar workers who were suddenly replaced were completely panicked.

This AI replaces human labor. Tide, how wide is the impact? Is the industry the first to bear the brunt?

The answer given by Goldman Sachs is, 300 million people.

In March of this year, Goldman Sachs research pointed out that currently there are about 2/3 of the jobs in the United States. To a certain extent, it is threatened by AI automation. At present, AI has the ability to replace 1/4 of jobs. Globally, generative AI may face "automation" of 300 million full-time jobs.

QuantumBlack, an AI company owned by McKinsey Alexander Sukhalevsky, senior partner and global head of the company, is more "pessimistic", pointing out that 70% of jobs will be eliminated in the future.

In China alone, there may be 220 million.

In this inevitable trend, some professions are already in jeopardy. McKinsey Global Institute pointed out that the top ten professions most affected by generative AI are::

1. Customer service and sales 2. Secretaries and administrative assistants 3. IT and software engineers 4. Web and digital interface designers 5. Writers, editors, writers 6. Accountants and auditors 7. Interpreters and translators Members 8. Legal professionals 9. News analysts, journalists and journalists 10. Financial analysts

There is no doubt that white-collar workers are mainly affected, and in this "automation" wave, McKinsey pointed out that a large part It may be completed before 2030, that is, within the next five years.

In other words, in the next five years, most white-collar workers are likely to encounter a workplace crisis. By then, the age of 35 will not only be a hurdle for programmers to overcome, but also become the fate of more people.

The question is, why are white-collar workers and not blue-collar workers the most injured in the AI ​​era?

As early as last year, when people were talking about ChatGPT, Rakesh Kochhar, a senior researcher at the well-known American think tank Pew Research Center and an expert on employment trends, said: "Artificial intelligence is different from the technologies that have appeared in the past 100 years or so. Its impact is extending from factory floors to offices where white-collar, high-wage workers are located.”

Bill Gates also mentioned that white-collar jobs will be replaced by artificial intelligence earlier than blue-collar jobs.

The reason lies in the nature of white-collar work - more digital and more regular.

For example, white-collar jobs usually involve a lot of data processing, document preparation, information analysis, etc. These jobs will generate massive amounts of data, and the data can be used by AI systems to further train and deduce, so as to grasp the rules.

In contrast, blue-collar work relies more on practical operations, environmental awareness and immediate response, requires more flexibility, and is difficult to be "standardized."

For example, the delivery boy can accurately grasp the traffic conditions at each intersection, can quickly open a path in a crowded crowd, and can carry takeout while making the e-mule drive smoothly. This kind of flexibility, AI is difficult to replace. But the customer service staff of the food delivery platform sitting in the office are different. What they say and what steps they take can be standardized.

Therefore, AI expert Dr. Kaifu Li also mentioned:

In intellectual jobs, weak social and repetitive tasks such as telephone sales, customer service, and recruitment assistants are easy to be However, creative or decision-making and highly social jobs are not easy to replace, such as entrepreneurs, M&A experts, social workers, etc.;

A two-dimensional diagram of intellectual jobs being taken over by AI. Creative, decision-making, and highly social jobs are not easy to replace.

In labor-based jobs, dishwashers, fast-food waiters, pickers, etc. are weakly social , Highly mechanical jobs are easy to be replaced, while jobs with strong social interaction and high flexibility are not easy to be replaced, such as nursing home attendants, sports rehabilitation therapists, etc.

A two-dimensional picture of labor-based jobs being taken over by AI. Jobs with strong social interaction and high flexibility are not easily replaced by AI.

From this point of view, worrying about yourselfFor white-collar workers whose job is in jeopardy, if they don’t want to or are not destined to be bosses or artists, then learning a craft and becoming a flexible blue-collar worker or a highly social worker is also an option.

After all, all roads lead to Rome.

However, in my opinion, this is still not the best way out for white-collar workers.

"Sir, if you refuse to dismantle the machines, we will visit and destroy them."

Two hundred years ago, a panic of being replaced by machines, among traditional textile workers spread.

During the day, the stocking weavers gathered in the square in the center of Nottingham, England, and complained in tears; at night, when they received no response, they wielded sledgehammers and hit the "new" of the times again and again. "Invention" - a machine that can improve production efficiency and allow this group of apprentices to practice for 7 years but fall short.

This is the famous "Luddite Movement" in history.

Today, when AI outlaws artificial intelligence more and more, will a new generation of "Luddite Movement" break out?

There have been calls from across the ocean: "It's time to destroy AI"

"Blaming new technologies is almost a story repeated repeatedly in human history, because only technology cannot Will talk back.” The gold content of Nancy Behm of Microsoft Research is still rising.

However, facts have proven that the times did not stop because of the workers’ voices two hundred years ago. After that, Britain became the “world’s factory” and established its status as a global hegemon.

Two hundred years later, the historical process will probably not stop.

Similarly, just as we cannot ignore the economic prosperity brought by the Industrial Revolution, we cannot ignore the progress that AI has brought to mankind.

On January 30 this year, Tsinghua University released the results of the world’s first clinical trial of a wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface. A patient with spinal cord injury and quadriplegia for 14 years recovered after three months of surgery. After training, with the help of brain computers and pneumatic gloves, I can hold a mineral water bottle and drink water by my own thoughts.

The first patient successfully achieved brain-controlled grasping through a wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface. Source: Tsinghua University

Almost at the same time, Musk announced on social media that his brain-computer grasp Interface company (Neuralink) has completed the first human brain device implantation surgery, and the recipient "recovered well." Two months later, Neuralink announced that this man, who suffered a spinal cord injury due to a diving accident eight years ago and became a quadriplegic, can now control the mouse with his thoughts and play online games and chess.

Such an achievement was unimaginable in the past, but now people's "thoughts" can be digitally processed and instructions transmitted.

Since it is unstoppable, what else can we do?

In October this year, at the India Artificial Intelligence Summit, AI godfather Huang Renxun shared his views:

AI cannot replace people, but those who do not use AI will be replaced by those who use AI. replace.

He said: "Right now, as we speak, AI cannot possibly do what we do. Based on the work we do, AI can do 20% of our jobs 1,000 times better For some people, it can even do 50% of the work 1000 times better. But in any job, AI cannot do 100 times. % better than humans."

Huang Renxun mentioned, "The real threat will not be that AI takes over the job. It is more likely that those who use AI to automate 20% of your job will take over." /p>

Therefore, the best way to cope with this great change is to join if you can't beat it and become a member of the "advancement of the times" rather than the "price".

The middle class bubble will burst sooner or later. The United States has the "Redneck Elegy" and Japan has the "Collapse of the Middle Class." Times abandon a generation without even saying hello in advance.

Reference: Benzinga: Six-Figure Job Market Faces 'White-Collar Recession' As LinkedIn Reports 26% Drop In Engineering Roles Cheng Qian’s Moments: Two people made 3 million in revenue in a month, revealing the secret of e-commerce MCN AI Freezing Point Weekly, 200 years ago, they were replaced by machines: The first batch of people to use AI to work for themselves: more relaxed and more afraid McKinsey: Generative AI in China: economic value of 2 trillion US dollars