Vulnerable workers most susceptible to AI displacement says Jaric Director

WHILE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) offers solutions, it also introduces risks of a different kind, human and societal risks, with job displacement being a real consequence.

“…one of the key issues that job displacement will create, is stress among persons. I was mentioning to someone this morning that we are just sitting by…and what is happening is, we’re just in a holding pattern until employers realize that we can get an AI system to do what you are presently doing.

“And that is the reality of what is happening. From the boardroom to the cleaners, everyone is at risk,” Director of Jaric Environmental and Health Safety Services Limited, Eric Kipps told local workers on Friday April 25, 2025.

Kipps was speaking at the opening of a one-day World Safety Day workshop which was organised by Jaric, and centred around the theme “The Transformative Impact of Digitization and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Workers’ Safety and Health.”

The workshop had as one of its initiatives, advancing safety and health in the work place due to new threats like AI, and Kipps noted that AI has brought a new type of hazard to the workplace so it is important that employees are updated.

Kipps told the gathering at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Global Campus in Richmond Hill, that a 2023 study said jobs most susceptible to automation, are proportionately held by low-income workers, creating a threat of deepening inequality if action is not taken.

“This is what we have to look at. Two weeks ago, I was in a supermarket in Miami, very large supermarket… 25 cash stations, one cashier, all the rest were automated,” Kipps pointed out, while noting that eight years ago, an AI expert and former President of Google, China, said that AI is going to eliminate 40% of the world’s jobs in 15 years.

“He said that eight years ago. These are not scare tactics. These are warnings grounded in data,” the Jaric head man said.

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