No more jobs?

Have you ever thought about this? You work hard in your office, you dedicate years of effort, loyalty, and discipline. But what if one day, all of that can be replaced not by a person working for a lower salary, but by a machine? A computer that makes no demands, takes no salary, feels no emotions, never asks for holidays, and works 24/7 without fatigue. Would your company still choose you, or would it choose the machine? The uncomfortable truth is that the answer is already here. We are living in a time when jobs are not just under pressure they are on the verge of extinction. This is not a myth, not science fiction, but a reality we are stepping into. Geoffrey Hinton, often called the ‘Godfather of AI’, has already warned us: human beings will soon be the second most intelligent beings on the planet.

Artificial Intelligence, was earlier basic, for example, playing chess or solving mathematical problems. But in recent years, after the development of deep learning and neural networks, AI has taken a fast pace. No one expected it, and yet it has risen, touching new heights. One of the famous names behind this is Geoffrey Hinton, who worked for more than 10 years at Google on AI. His work in deep learning and neural networks has strengthened the basis of modern AI. He has himself said that the AI which today works to make human tasks easier will soon replace professions.

There are many jobs where humans are being replaced with AI. Customer service agents, for example, are being overtaken by AI agents that now handle nearly 80 percent of customer service inquiries. Even in the legal profession once assumed to be safe, AI is entering fast. Legal assistants and junior lawyers are in danger. Today, AI can write legal contracts, summarize court cases, and do legal research even 10 times faster than humans. Global law firms already use ChatGPT like tools. Where a lawyer lining up case history once took three days, AI now does it in 30 seconds, complete with references and past judgments. It is not just about saving time, but also about accuracy and freedom from bias. It is true that various High Courts and even the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India have warned about the use of AI in court proceedings, as AI has been found to generate false or fabricated citations. Justice Nagaprasanna has also expressed deep concern about the growing reliance on AI in the legal field, stating: “Too much dependence on that is dangerous, and that’s going to destroy the profession itself. Dependence on artificial intelligence should not make your intelligence artificial.”

However, with continuous advancements, these problems may not remain permanent. AI systems are improving in accuracy, transparency, and reliability. Based on crawling, indexing, and algorithms that serve results from massive databases, AI is likely to overcome issues such as false citations and will eventually perform these very tasks with greater precision and efficiency than before. Writers, copy editors, content creators, bloggers, even freelance creators all are being affected. AI has even damaged companies like Google’s own products.

As Geoffrey Hinton, the ‘Godfather of AI,’ says, “New graduates are not struggling because they lack talent; they are struggling because AI is already doing the very jobs they thought they would do”. The roles that were once reserved for freshers - data entry operators, customer on-boarding, email replies, document verification are now done by AI bots. This is a silent crisis with no easy solution. Getting a degree is easy, but getting a job is becoming extremely difficult. Even software developers are being replaced, as AI can now generate and debug code. Creative industries, designers, analysts, data handlers, Excel operators, and information summarizers all these professions will be affected in the coming years. In the next 10 years, some jobs will still remain safe. The real question is: what do we do now? There are only two ways:

1. 
   Ignore and wait for the day your company fires you.
2. 
   Prepare now by learning new skills, especially those based on AI itself.

As Geoffrey Hinton has hinted, AI may replace many knowledge-based jobs, but it will find it very difficult to replace jobs that require hands-on physical presence. Professions like plumbing, electricians, construction workers, technical carpenters, security guards, and therapists will continue to have value.

This article is not to threaten you, but to make you cautious about the future. The change has already started. AI is not a myth it is here, and it is reshaping our world. The question is whether we prepare and adapt, or whether we wait until the day comes when we hear the words:

Khan Khalid, expertise in Cyber Crimes, with an eye on world affairs & artificial intelligence

 (Article reflects personal opinion, and does not represent any organization.)