HSBC Holdings PLC yesterday appealed to staff not to fight artificial intelligence (AI), saying it would destroy jobs while creating new ones, as banking rival Standard Chartered PLC sought to calm workers over comments that the technology would replace “lower-value human capital.”
The predictions are the clearest sign yet about the upheaval from a technology that can consume and process vast swathes of data, completing tasks previously done by people.
HSBC chief executive officer Georges Elhedery urged staff to make sure they were “not fighting us, not disenfranchised, not anxious, overwhelmed, and resisting the change,” pledging that AI could make them “more productive versions of themselves.”
Photo: AFP
“We all know generative AI will destroy certain jobs and will create new jobs,” Elhedery said.
Standard Chartered said on Tuesday that it would eliminate almost 8,000 jobs as it replaced what chief executive officer Bill Winters called “lower-value human capital” with technology.
Winters said Standard Chartered would cut 15 percent of its corporate function roles by 2030, highlighting how staff in so-called “back office roles” are particularly vulnerable.
HSBC employs more than 211,000 people, while Standard Chartered has about 83,000 employees.
Underscoring the sensitivity of the issue, Winters sought to limit the fallout in a memo yesterday, saying staff were valued and any changes would be handled with “thought and care.”
Morgan Stanley analysts found that companies in banking, technology and professional services had shed one in 20 staff in the past year as a result of using AI.
Offshore workers, on which financial services firms rely to run many of their information technology services at locations including India or Poland, and young, new workers are bearing the brunt, Morgan Stanley said in a report.
As banks become more up front about how AI could replace routine jobs, fears are growing over the scale of disruption. Using AI to cut jobs risks a backlash, Norway’s US$2.2 trillion sovereign wealth fund chief executive officer Nicolai Tangen said last month.
Meanwhile, academics have warned that staff resisting adopting AI in order not to make themselves redundant could be alienated.
“One should be cautious not to lay off too many staff, because the point in time may come sooner than you think where the productivity potential of AI is realized, and you want these people,” Oxford Internet Institute departmental research lecturer Fabian Braesemann said.
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