Although large tech corporations may not explicitly state that AI is replacing humans, one tech investor does, and he warns that two professions in particular need to be on the lookout.
According to Victor Lazarte, general partner at venture capital company Benchmark, “Big companies talk about, like, ‘AI is not replacing people, it is augmenting them,'” during a recent episode of the podcast “The Twenty Minute VC.”
“It is bulls—t,” commented Lazarte. “People are being completely replaced.”
According to Lazarte, recruiters and attorneys should be particularly cautious of AI.
He clarified that AI will be able to replace the hectic legal labor that frequently falls to young law school graduates in the next three years. According to Lazarte, AI will replace human interviewers in the recruiting process.
According to Lazarte, “there is not going to be that many things” that AI is incapable of.
AI tools are already being used in the legal sector. The legal tech startup Libra, which serves 150 law firms and over 3,000 attorneys, upgraded its AI earlier this week to assist with all aspects of daily legal work, including research and review. The American Bar Association named Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot as its top four AI professional tools last July.
Additionally, AI has significantly raised the caliber of legal work. Researchers at the University of Michigan Law School found in a March study that artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance law students’ ability to construct legal analyses. Participants in the study said that using AI increased the caliber of their legal work by as much as 28%.
Law companies are rushing to implement AI in the meanwhile. According to a July 2024 Thomson Reuters survey of 2,200 professionals and C-Suite executives worldwide, AI was ranked as the #1 strategic objective by law firms.
AI is being used by businesses to automate the hiring process. Although 99% of Fortune 500 firms use AI to screen applicants, according to Jobscan data, its impact extends beyond the first application stage. According to a Resume Builder poll, more than 40% of businesses employed AI to “talk” to applicants and conduct interviews in 2024. Some candidates have been caught off guard by the AI screenings.
Startups are occupied with investigating the AI hiring market in the interim. Last month, the AI hiring business OptimHire, which discovers applicants, sets up calls, and conducts interviews, won $5 million in venture funding.
In January, ConverzAI, a small AI recruiting startup, raised $16 million in a Series A financing to develop virtual recruiters. In February, Mercor, a larger business that matches applicants and screens resumes using AI, raised $100 million in a Series B financing. OpenAI is one of the clients of Mercor.
AI has the ability to help launch new businesses, but it may also replace jobs, according to Lazarte.
He foresaw that “very small teams will be handling these trillion-dollar companies.”
Asana, Snap, and Uber are among the businesses that Benchmark has supported.
