Artificial intelligence may transform the labor market, reduce consumer demand and deepen inequality between capital owners and wage workers. In Kazakhstan, the spread of AI could also affect contributions to the pension system, the mandatory social health insurance (OSMS) and local budgets, as they largely depend on payroll deductions. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
This was written by Galim Khusainov, former head of Bank CenterCredit and chairman of the board of directors of Solva Group.
According to him, the current technological revolution differs from previous ones in that automation affects not only physical but also office labor.
«Industrialization and automation of routine operations sharply reduced the need for blue-collar professions in factories and plants. The current wave of AI affects another layer of employment: administrative and office work, which until recently was almost immune to automation,» the expert noted.
The next stage, according to his forecast, will be the combination of artificial intelligence with humanoid robots. This will boost productivity in those production areas where manual labor still persists.
The first consequences of AI's spread are already visible in the labor market. According to the International Monetary Fund, new technologies could affect about 40% of jobs worldwide and 60% in developed countries.
Khusainov also cites a Stanford University study based on salary data from millions of American workers. According to it, employment of specialists aged 22–25 in occupations most exposed to AI is already 19% lower than it could have been at the growth rates in less affected professions. This applies, in particular, to software development and customer support.
At the same time, companies are so far not so much laying off employees as stopping hiring new ones.
«It is telling that this is happening not through layoffs but through reduced hiring: companies simply stop taking on entry-level specialists. There are no mass layoffs across the economy yet, but in my estimation, over a 5–10 year horizon they will become noticeable,» Khusainov believes.
He explains that the effect of new technologies does not appear immediately. First, companies restructure processes and train employees, and only then gain productivity growth. A similar situation, he says, was observed with the spread of electricity and computers.
One of the main macroeconomic risks Khusainov sees is income redistribution. Artificial intelligence reduces companies' labor costs and increases the supply of goods and services. However, the incomes with which people buy these goods and services may gradually shift from workers to owners of capital and technology.
As a historical example, the expert cites the 1920s. At that time, electrification and assembly-line production sharply increased productivity, but incomes were distributed increasingly unevenly, and consumer demand was largely supported by credit. When the debt burden became unbearable, a borrower crisis began, and bank failures deepened the downturn and led to the Great Depression.
Khusainov recalls that economist John Maynard Keynes warned back in 1930 about a situation where technological progress outpaces the economy's ability to create new jobs for displaced workers. He used the term «technological unemployment» for this phenomenon. Later, Keynes justified the need for government stimulation of aggregate demand.
«Therefore, the question of how to support consumer demand amid declining labor costs must be raised now,» Khusainov emphasized.
The expert believes that countries that fall behind in adopting artificial intelligence risk losing ground in global competition and becoming technologically dependent on leaders.
«Those who lag in adopting innovation and AI risk losing global competition, falling into technological dependence on leaders and becoming poorer. In this sense, I consider the President's course toward AI adoption as part of state policy to be strategically correct,» he wrote.
However, the technological transformation has a downside. Khusainov draws attention to Kazakhstan's dependence of social and budget revenues on wages.
The pension system and mandatory social health insurance (OSMS) are financed through contributions and payroll deductions. Individual income tax (IIT), in turn, remains one of the main sources of local budget revenues. If the share of labor compensation in the economy begins to shrink, the base for these revenues will also decrease.
«Therefore, in parallel with AI adoption, it is necessary to work out in advance a gradual shift of the tax burden from labor to capital and rent, mass retraining of workers and preparation of young people who must enter the labor market not only with a diploma but also with AI skills,» the expert believes.
Khusainov said that Solva Group is also actively adopting AI. In his opinion, the company's transition to an AI-native model, in which artificial intelligence becomes the foundation of work processes, largely depends on the leader.
«Experience shows that a company becomes AI-native only when the first executive is himself an active AI user. I use AI every day and at the same time understand that I am engaging barely 1% of its capabilities,» he shared.
The expert believes that artificial intelligence is changing the competitive environment and giving small and medium-sized businesses tools that were previously available mainly to large companies.
With its help, entrepreneurs can independently create websites, automate processes, respond to emails, run social media, write programs, develop design, promote goods and analyze data from open sources.
Large companies, according to Khusainov, will find it harder to adapt due to internal bureaucracy. At the same time, they retain an advantage in the form of their own data and access to customers.
«Large co...» – the sentence is cut off.