Opinion: AI is taking over our jobs – or is the reality more nuanced?
Opinion
Following the news that TomTom is cutting 300 jobs due to the use of artificial intelligence (AI), FGGA researchers Friso Selten and Alex Ingrams responded with opinion pieces. They place the news in a broader context and call for a more nuanced debate on AI and job losses.
TomTom aims to develop products more quickly and flexibly in order to enhance the user experience, and sees a solution in the use of artificial intelligence (AI). As a result of this strategic shift, the company announced this week that approximately 300 positions will be cut. Dutch broadcaster NOS headlined: 'TomTom schrapt 300 banen, AI neemt werk over.' (TomTom cuts 300 jobs as AI takes over work)
Friso Selten, a PhD candidate researching the use of artificial intelligence by public organisations, and Alex Ingrams, an associate professor of public administration with expertise in digital government, respond to this. According to them, the situation is more nuanced: while AI may bring about significant changes, this does not automatically mean that human labour will become largely redundant.
Digital Darwinism
According to Friso, making greater use of AI is currently a strategic priority for many companies. He explains that there is talk of ‘digital Darwinism’: organisations that fail to digitalise quickly enough risk falling behind or even going bankrupt. AI offers opportunities to improve processes, respond more rapidly, and better meet customer needs.
At the same time, announcements like TomTom’s raise questions about whether AI is taking over our jobs. Are we on the brink of mass unemployment? Although Herbert Simon predicted back in 1965 that 'intelligent machines would be capable of doing all human work by 1985', we can safely say in 2025 that this prediction has not come true.
AI-hypes
Friso explains that the history of AI is marked by waves of high expectations, the so-called ‘AI hypes’, followed by disappointing periods without major breakthroughs, known as ‘AI winters’. Simon made his prediction during the first ‘AI hype’, which was followed by an ‘AI winter’ when the promised breakthroughs failed to materialise.
Friso: 'Rather than replacing people, organisations would be better off focusing on research and investing in collaboration between humans and machines.'
According to Friso, we are currently in a third AI hype, during which generative AI models are used by journalists to write texts, assist programmers with coding, and create special effects for filmmakers. However, there are also signs that this AI hype is already cooling off again. He cites the company Klarna as an example, where customer service employees, previously replaced by AI, have been rehired due to increasing complaints about quality and customer satisfaction.
Friso also points out that research shows there is increasingly less new data available to train AI models, which limits further improvement of AI. AI researches from Apple highlight fundamental limitations of current AI, making it unlikely that AI will be able to perform complex tasks completely autonomously.
Friso emphasises that, rather than replacing people, organisations would do better to focus on research and invest in collaboration between humans and machines. AI and humans each have unique strengths, and their cooperation, human and AI, holds the greatest potential.
'There’s much more at play.'
According to Alex, we have heard similar reports more frequently across every sector, referring to the 10% job cuts at TomTom. It is tempting to view such reports as an inevitable loss of jobs due to artificial intelligence, but Alex argues that this is a too deterministic perspective and that there is more at play.
He explains that in the case of TomTom, the shift towards AI and new technologies has been ongoing for nearly twenty years, since the rise of the smartphone. TomTom is trying to survive while remaining competitive, and is using AI to achieve this.
Alex: 'Although the disappearance of human labour may seem inevitable and sudden, there is often more going on.'
Although the disappearance of human labour may seem inevitable and sudden, there is often more to it: the strategic course towards this is a lengthy process not determined solely by AI. The growing role of artificial intelligence now calls for more conscious reflection, where it is essential that strategic plans take both the human and organisational aspects into balanced consideration.