AI is a 'slow-moving tsunami' that will wipe out jobs, warns IMF

Artificial intelligence is ‘a slow-moving tsunami’ that will wipe out jobs around the world and destroy opportunities for the young, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned.

At the start of the Fund’s annual meetings in Bangkok, Kristalina Georgieva said around 40 per cent of all jobs will eventually be ‘augmented, downgraded or eliminated’ by the technology.

‘It is a slow-moving tsunami but a tsunami nonetheless,’ she said. ‘It is a transformative technology. It so completely changes how we work, how we live.

‘Love it, hate it, or fear it. It is here, and we are already seeing the first wave of impact.’

Georgieva warned that the young will bear the brunt of the AI boom if entry-level jobs are wiped out – robbing them of opportunities to start their careers.

‘People to worry about, first and foremost, are young people that are coming into the labor market,’ she said. ‘Normally, they would get into these routine, repetitive jobs and then grow up the ranks.’

Speaking at the same event in Thailand, Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam sounded the alarm over the impact on graduates.

‘There is a particular problem that we have to address very soon and that is that the first rung in employment, your first job upon graduation, is now seeing less demand,’ he said.

Georgieva said the impact on jobs would also hit the public finances because taxes on income are a major source of revenue for governments – including in the UK.

Concern about prospects for the young is mounting in the UK with nearly one million aged between 16 and 24 now classed as NEETs – not in employment, education or training.

Advertising guru Sir Martin Sorrell warned job prospects in Britain have been hit by the rising cost of employing staff – such as Labour’s national insurance hike and new rights for workers.

Warning of ‘restrictions on hiring people’ in the UK, he told the Daily Mail: ‘The changes in the labour laws, the cost of hiring people and the inflexibility is making people more cautious about hiring. With AI coming down the track, AI will increasingly replace labour as a result.’