Too Trusting AI, Many Companies Now Regretting Laying Off Employees

JAKARTA - A number of global companies are beginning to change their strategies for implementing artificial intelligence or artificial intelligence (AI) after realizing that the technology has not been able to fully replace the role of humans. In fact, some companies have decided to rehire employees who were previously laid off due to AI-based efficiency policies.

As reported by CNBC, Saturday, July 4, this trend emerged as the adoption of AI in various industrial sectors became more widespread. The experience of a number of companies shows that automation has not yet been able to replace jobs that require judgment, creativity, decision-making, and solving complex problems.

Automotive manufacturer Ford is one of the companies that has re-hired hundreds of experienced engineers after the automated system was judged to be unable to solve various product quality issues.

"Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but only as good as the information you use to train it," said Charles Poon, vice president of vehicle hardware engineering at Ford.

A similar move was made by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). Previously, the bank replaced dozens of customer service officers with an AI-based voice bot. However, the system actually triggered an increase in the number of calls because it was unable to handle all customer needs. This condition made the company cancel the decision to lay off employees and re-involve human resources in customer service.

In the technology sector, IBM is also facing a similar challenge. AI is able to handle about 94 percent of routine requests in the human resources (HR) division, but fails to resolve about 6 percent of cases related to more complex ethical and decision-making issues.

IBM's head of HR, Nickle LaMoreaux, emphasized that companies still need to invest in new talent to maintain the sustainability of the organization.

"If we don't continue to invest in hiring entry-level employees, what will happen in the next three to five years? There is no recruitment pipeline; human resources will just dry up," he said.

This phenomenon is also reflected in survey results. The Orgvue report shows that about 39 percent of business leaders have ever laid off employees due to the implementation of AI. However, as many as 55 percent of them later admitted that the decision was a wrong step.

Meanwhile, a Robert Half survey revealed that 32 percent of hiring managers in the United States have eliminated a job position because of AI. However, they eventually reopened the same or similar positions after the implementation of the technology did not provide the expected results.

Analysts assess that AI should be positioned as a tool to increase productivity, not as a full replacement for human labor. Collaboration between humans and AI is considered capable of producing more effective performance than relying on full automation.

The Intuition Labs report also mentions that many companies regret the decision to lay off because they lose human resources that are actually needed to oversee, evaluate, and optimize the performance of AI systems.

In line with this, Senior Vice President of ADP APAC Jessica Zhang said that the inconsistent results of AI work make companies still need human supervision.

"If AI results are inconsistent, inaccurate, or difficult to implement, companies often need to reintroduce human oversight," Zhang said.