The specter of AI taking up jobs is changing into more and more actual. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy lately informed workers that as AI takes on extra duties within the coming years, the character of labor at Amazon will change, probably decreasing the variety of company roles.
“As we roll out extra generative AI and brokers, it ought to change the way in which our work is completed. We are going to want fewer folks doing among the jobs which might be being carried out at this time, and extra folks doing different kinds of jobs,” he mentioned.
This shift is starting to place tangible stress on undergraduate college students who’re already fearful about their job prospects.
A report from San Francisco-based enterprise agency SignalFire reveals that main tech firms—together with Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla—have minimize recent graduate hiring by over 50% since 2022. The sharp decline has left many college students anxious about their careers.
In a latest video titled The Fact About AI and Jobs, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman addressed these considerations. Concerning AI and expertise growth, Hoffman mentioned that prompting with AI instruments like ChatGPT continues to be in a primitive stage.
“Proper now, nobody is prompting in significantly good methods. We’re all like 5% customers,” he mentioned, whereas advising college students to study not simply the way to immediate, however the way to apply AI to actual issues. “The query is not only ‘am I prompting’, however ‘which issues may AI be utilized to in methods which might be fascinating and distinctive?’”
For these feeling discouraged about getting into the workforce with restricted expertise, Hoffman framed AI as a possible benefit relatively than a menace. “You might be technology AI. You might be AI native. That makes you enormously enticing on this atmosphere,” he mentioned.
Replying to a scholar from Oxford, who was not sure about accepting a job she didn’t love, Hoffman mentioned, “Doing a job versus not doing a job is at all times a greater strategy to finally be attending to a significantly better job two, 5, ten years out.” He added that whereas ardour issues, early profession decisions needs to be seen as strategic steps.
“You’re typically mistaught that it is best to solely be on the lookout for what you’re enthusiastic about…The bottom line is to be strategic.”
AIM reached out to some undergraduate college students to grasp how they view AI. Shrravan Okay, a third-year BTech mechatronics scholar at MIT, Manipal, informed AIM that, a minimum of for now, he believes AI will certainly create extra job alternatives. “In the case of growth, nothing might be mentioned in regards to the distant future simply but,” he added.
He made it clear that he isn’t significantly fearful, as he believes AI will generate extra job alternatives within the tertiary and quaternary sectors. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that labourers in repetitive or low-supervision roles would possibly lose their jobs, as AI can carry out these duties extra effectively and even right its personal errors.
Sankalp Gupta, a second-year Physics scholar at Cornell College, informed AIM that he hasn’t noticed a lot concern amongst physics undergrads about AI taking up jobs, particularly in academia, the place analysis and ideation dominate.
He believes that producing new concepts, which is a key a part of physics analysis, continues to be past present AI capabilities. “In arising with new concepts, which is 70% to 80% of analysis, that’s not affected by what AI does,” Gupta mentioned. He added that college students primarily use ChatGPT to write down and refine code for analysing information.
What are Tech Leaders saying?
Equally to what the scholars talked about, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy is optimistic about AI and sees it as a driver for the expansion of the Indian IT business, whilst considerations about slowing development and job losses persist. Murthy shared that utilizing instruments like ChatGPT has elevated his productiveness fivefold.
“This entire concern that know-how will take away jobs just isn’t proper. It should create a unique sort of job. For instance, what I discovered in utilizing ChatGPT for my speeches was the next: the smartness is in offering the requirement definition for my speech. The smartness is in asking the best query,” he toldMoneycontrol in an interview.
Hoffman’s assertion comes towards the backdrop of different business leaders elevating considerations about AI taking up many job roles. In a latest interview with CNBC, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, issued a stark warning in regards to the potential labour market disruption attributable to AI, predicting that as much as 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs may disappear within the subsequent 5 years. He mentioned this shift may push unemployment charges to between 10% and 20%
Then again, NVIDIA chief Jensen Huang dismissed Amodei’s predictions. Whereas he acknowledged that some jobs could change into out of date, he added that AI may even create new alternatives. “Every time firms are extra productive, they rent extra folks.” He sees a future the place staff act as “HRs of AI brokers”, utilizing AI to raised their roles relatively than substitute them.
In the meantime, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that, judging by a historic sample of technological change, whereas AI will remove some jobs, it should additionally create some new ones. Nevertheless, he defined that what’s totally different now’s the unprecedented pace at which this transformation is predicted to happen.
On the Snowflake Summit 2025, Altman mentioned, “At the moment AI is like an intern that may work for a few hours, however sooner or later it’ll be like an skilled software program engineer that may work for a few days.”
In a latest podcast, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, mentioned AI will rework the job market. It should seemingly comply with the historic sample the place new and infrequently higher roles emerge alongside disruptive applied sciences.
“New jobs are created which might be really higher, that utilise these instruments,” he mentioned, referencing previous shifts led to by the web and cell. He suggested undergraduate college students to deeply immerse themselves in understanding utilizing the brand new AI programs. “It’s nonetheless necessary to review STEM and programming…so that you just perceive how they’re constructed,” he mentioned. Hassabis added that these utilizing AI instruments may change into 10 occasions extra productive.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai additionally thinks the identical. In response to him, AI received’t take away jobs, however relatively make workers extra productive. “I anticipate we’ll develop from our present engineering section even into subsequent yr, as a result of it permits us to do extra,” he mentioned.
He added that AI is performing as an “accelerator” by dealing with repetitive duties, which permits engineers to give attention to extra significant issues. This rise in productiveness, he famous, may result in extra hiring as Google scales product growth.
What Now?
For latest graduates, the important thing lies in embracing AI as a software, upskilling in related applied sciences, and honing human-centric expertise. Whereas AI could disrupt conventional profession paths, it additionally opens doorways to new prospects, supplied the following technology is able to step by.
For example, Hoffman additionally touched upon how AI is reshaping particular job roles, comparable to net design. “The truth that you could possibly produce the ‘web site design coding for dummies’ e-book now not issues as a lot, as a result of AI can do all that,” he mentioned. The worth now lies in creativity and the power to align design with broader enterprise goals.
When requested whether or not faculty levels are dropping relevance, Hoffman targeted on the significance of adaptability. “It’s not essentially the factor you realized in X101…it’s your capability to study.” He inspired college students to prioritise steady studying over static talent units.
He additionally pressured the significance of networks. “Life is a staff sport, not simply a person sport.” Sustaining peer relationships and constructing new ones can assist college students entry new alternatives and share sources because the job market evolves.
The put up AI Simply Killed the Graduate Job Market—Now What? appeared first on Analytics India Journal.
