In Brief
  • Computing pioneer, Vinod Khosla, envisions a future where Artificial Intelligence will take over 80 percent of IT jobs.
  • IT guys are not the only white collar professionals who Khosla sees as replaceable by VR they also join doctors, lawyers, and accountants on the growing list.

Taking over IT

Amidst the anxious grumbling of his audience at last week’s Structure Conference in San Francisco, billionaire Vinod Khosla expressed that 80% of jobs in an IT department could be replaced by AI-type systems. “I think that’s exciting,” added Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems and Silicon Valley venture firm, Khosla Ventures.

Speaking to an audience of mostly CIOs and other tech executives, Khosla backed up his statement by citing examples of companies that are developing technology that would precisely automate the IT industry. He mentions Nutanix, a company Khosla Ventures invested on, which facilitates how computing infrastructure professionals automate the handling of networks between servers. He also mentions enterprise software startups like Mesosphere, which simplify the job of installing and maintaining software on servers.
Credits: Thomson Reuters
Credits: Thomson Reuters
Khosla believes that artificial intelligence will make its way to server rooms and data centers everywhere, taking over jobs from human IT staff. He explained that companies spend a lot on keeping a sizable IT department, a cost that can be significantly lessened with automation.

The age of automation

Khosla’s musings were welcomed with a bit of unease, especially since predictions of AI taking over jobs have been quite worrisome for many people. Khosla was quick to calm his audience, telling them not to worry because “we’re all in the other 20%, not the 80% that’s automated.”
Most people think that AI can only takeover manual, blue collar jobs — like driving taxis and delivery trucks — which makes Khosla’s predictions surprising even to an audience of IT professionals. But the Silicon Valley billionaire isn’t alone in seeing a future of AI in white collar industries, perhaps as doctors, lawyers, and accountants. And now, as IT guys.

Perhaps Khosla is right in saying that it is exciting. After all, seeing machines doing what human can do has a certain thrill to it. But even so, the large-scale job loss that’s bound to happen cannot be ignored. It is important that policy makers and industry leaders come up with solutions that can help the human worker, and at the same time allowing the machine to take over.