AI and the Bottom Line
We like to tell ourselves that human beings are irreplaceable. We convince ourselves that a computer will never understand nuance, or show empathy, or handle the complex dynamics of a real workplace. It helps us sleep at night when we see the headlines about artificial intelligence getting smarter by the day. We assume our livelihoods are safe because a machine can't replicate human intuition.
But it doesn't have to. It just needs to be cheaper.
Because of this, the shift to automation isn't going to be a sudden, dramatic event. It's going to be much quieter, much slower, and ultimately, much more permanent.
There are plenty of well-meaning, soft-hearted CEOs who believe their workers are safe. These leaders genuinely care about their staff. They look at their employees and truly think an algorithm will never capture the culture and dedication of real people. They vow that human beings will always be their company's greatest asset.
But it’s only a matter of time before the truth of the bottom line sets in.
It will probably happen after a miserable drop in quarterly revenue. The company will be bleeding money, investors will be furious, and the CEO will be desperate for a way out. This is when someone from finance or tech will pull the CEO aside and carefully, step by step, explain what is now possible. They will point to a specific department and show how an AI model can process the data, handle the client requests, or generate the reports in three seconds. The AI doesn’t need a 401(k) match. It doesn't call in sick. It doesn't take maternity leave. It doesn't ask for a raise to keep up with inflation. The CEO will look at the crushing deficit, and the choice will make itself.
This isn't a hypothetical scenario. It's already happening. IBM announced a massive hiring pause, with their CEO explicitly stating he could easily see 30% of their non-customer-facing roles automated by AI over a five-year period. The financial tech company Klarna announced that their AI assistant was handling two-thirds of all customer service chats—doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time employees. And a major report from Goldman Sachs estimated that generative AI could eventually automate the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs globally.
The transition doesn't start with a massive company-wide announcement. It starts as a hiring freeze. When a veteran employee retires, the company simply doesn't hire anyone new; they buy a software subscription to cover the workload. The remaining employees are given new AI software to increase their productivity, inadvertently training the systems that will make their own roles redundant. Slowly but surely, the human footprint of the company shrinks.
We won't lose our livelihoods overnight. We're going to lose them to a spreadsheet. When the technology becomes smart enough to do the work, and cheap enough to pad the profit margins, human dignity simply won't survive the math.
Goldman Sachs, "The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth," March 2023.
Bloomberg, "IBM to Pause Hiring for Jobs That AI Could Do," May 2023.
Fast Company, "Klarna says its AI assistant does the work of 700 people," February 2024.
