Conversations with execs at the World Economic Forum reveal that many are racing toward automation to stay ahead of competition regardless of impact on workers
DAVOS, Switzerland — They'll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible. Tweets: @nytimesbusiness , @alexstamos , @dabeard , @nytimes , @simonestolzoff , @nytimesbusiness , @dealbook , @stoweboyd , and @nytimesbusiness Tweets: @nytimesbusiness : A 2017 survey by Deloitte found that 53 percent of companies had already started to use machines to perform tasks previously done by humans. The figure is expected to climb to 72 percent by next year. @kevinroose explores why: http://www.nytimes.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : @kevinroose None of those CEOs have ever spent a weekend sobbing because the random forest classifier you are trying to apply to a problem a 3yo can get right with 94% precision keeps crapping the bed.We are definitely in an ML optimism bubble at the exec level. David Beard / @dabeard : Wisconsin pledged up to $4 billion to Foxconn, which promised to create up to 13,000 jobs. It created 82 as of last week, and wants to automate 80 percent of jobs held by humans http://www.nytimes.com/... http://twitter.com/... @nytimes : In public, executives wring their hands over automation's negative consequences for workers. In private, they talk about how they are racing to automate, @kevinroose writes http://www.nytimes.com/... Simone Stolzoff / @simonestolzoff : .@kevinroose's dispatch from Davos is a great example of a story hiding in plain site: On stage, execs speak to the potential deleterious effects of automation, but behind closed doors they are trying to automate away labor as fast as they can. https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimesbusiness : “People are looking to achieve very big numbers,” the president of Infosys said. “Earlier they had incremental, 5 to 10 percent goals in reducing their work force. Now they're saying, 'Why can't we do it with 1 percent of the people we have?'” http://www.nytimes.com/... @dealbook : Kai-Fu Lee, a longtime technology executive, predicts that artificial intelligence will eliminate 40 percent of the world's jobs within 15 years. Here's what else he and others told our reporter: http://www.nytimes.com/... Stowe Boyd / @stoweboyd : An open secret is now headline news: The primary goal of ‘digital transformation’ is to cut as many workers as possible, and as soon as possible. http://twitter.com/... @nytimesbusiness : At a time of political unrest and anti-elite movements on the progressive left and the nationalist right, it's probably not surprising that all of this automation is happening quietly, out of public view. @kevinroose explores why: http://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Kevin Roose's Davos reporting puts private candor on the record: executives tell him they are racing to automate to stay ahead of competitors, even while they would never say so publicly. The competitive logic he documents has been building for years — automation was already displacing knowledge and service workers, not just factory hands, back in 2014 reporting on automation beyond manufacturing.
The gap between promised and delivered jobs is also part of this arc: Wisconsin pledged up to $4 billion in incentives to Foxconn, which ended up creating 82 jobs against a promised 13,000 — a cautionary data point for any government betting subsidies on corporate hiring commitments from the same executives now racing toward machines.
First-order effects
- Workers at companies adopting machine-performed tasks face immediate exposure: Deloitte's survey found 53% of companies had already started using machines for human tasks, projected to reach 72% within a year, and the Infosys president is openly asking why firms can't operate with 1% of current staff.
- The reporting exposes a credibility problem for employers in real time — executives admit privately what they will not say publicly, which raises the stakes for every 'AI augments workers' message coming out of Davos.
Second-order effects
- Government incentive deals tied to job creation get repriced: after Foxconn delivered 82 jobs on a 13,000-job promise under Wisconsin's up-to-$4 billion package, states have less reason to take executives' employment commitments at face value when the same executives privately plan headcount reduction.
- Labor's response shifts from opposing automation in the abstract to contesting how it is deployed — the pattern later visible in tech workers recounting managers using AI to justify firings and speed up work, and in an AT&T call center employee wondering whether her AI-assisted workflow is training her own replacement.
Third-order effects
- If competition forces automation adoption regardless of labor impact, the binding constraint moves from economics to governance — Ben Shneiderman's argument that full robotic automation absolves humans of ethical responsibility frames the regulatory and design question that follows once the race is on.
- Because researchers disagree on AI's employment impact precisely because tasks rather than occupations get automated, displacement arrives incrementally and resists both measurement and policy targeting — making the Davos executives' private race harder for regulators and workers to see, let alone counter.
The trend: Competitive pressure is turning automation from a cost decision into a strategic arms race that executives pursue regardless of workforce consequences, with public commitments to job creation increasingly decoupled from private plans.