I have no information on this, but the cynic in me thinks this is likely a total non-story/spin. I find it unlikely anyone would be so confident a AI system that they are "planning to introduce" that they'd schedule staff cuts.<p>What's more likely is that staff cuts were already planned. This puts a great spin on a (I would guess most likely free/cheap) experimental deployment of Watson.
I would love a 6 month or 1 year follow up story on the success or failure of such initiatives. Hearing about the plans of a company to implement a massive software system that affects core business processes is akin to hearing about the plans of someone to change a habit--things often work out as planned, but also can fail miserably.
With AI starting to actually supplant jobs, something sad has just occurred to me:<p>I foresee our (the US) government (and probably others) restricting the development and deployment of AI systems that would supplant human jobs, merely for the sake of ensuring people are employed.<p>I think it's sad because it would present a real opportunity to advance our society significantly.
I have the feeling that before we put the support systems in place for universal healthcare that you'll need a Phd to have a janitors job, and be thankful at that.
My wife was working for an insurance company until September. Despite being one of the most efficient workers, and having full time coworkers retire, she remained a temp her whole time there. In fact, they stopped hiring full time for many positions because new software systems were in the works. Software devs occasionally came and shadowed my wife to see how things worked. I secretly hope their profits have been hurt by treating employees like they're disposable, but I doubt it...
10 years ago we put on the market a fully automated subprime mortgage loan underwriting system, guess which was the most frequently requested feature - manual overriding (exceptions)!
Feels like many insurance companies have replaced humans with a simple printf("No payout"). They only pay in the rare case when someone manages to raise a social media shitstorm.
Watson doesn't work. This is more IBM spin coming out via clients who want to prove to themselves that their millions of dollars weren't wasted.