The invasion of artificial intelligence that has greatly affected humanity is no story and right now while some people have adapted to this invasion by learning how to use these tools, there are those who would never be able to adapt but must find other skills if they must remain relevant in their society. Although Nigeria is not moving at a very fast pace, but definitely with time companies would prefer to use artificial intelligence in a bid to save the cost of paying salaries. And knowing my country very well, days like that would come like a rush that if one is not careful, might fall into depression especially after losing your job with no one needing you or your years of experience. There are those who still think it's only digitalized courses that have been fully colonized by AI and some AI's would need human intelligence to be operated.
Well I hate to break it to you, but you see that course called ACCOUNTING would no longer need any special knowledge in 10 - 20 years from now because just anybody who knows how to use the computer would be able to use AI for accounting operations. Companies who have more than three accountants would need just one but must be very good and accustomed with the use of accounting AI models. A chartered accountant would no longer be a thing to brag about because who needs one when there's an AI that knows data entry and auditing so well that it can take up complex calculations without needing human assistance. I really pity the people studying that course right now, a lot of them whose dream was to become an accountant would in the future wish they had dreamt of something better. The course in itself is great but AI has made studying it 10x more competitive.
I was speaking with my MD at the office some weeks ago and he was telling me about how bitter he was about an accounting software that he purchased for millions of Naira. No one is using it as of now, he wants me to study the software to see if I can use it, which if I do might make us lose one of our accountants. Imagine an ordinary software already competing with their jobs and they don't know how much more an AI. As of now I haven't had the chance to look into it, but when I do, I would have to get back to my boss on a possible solution. The thing here is that I must look into it, unless he would find someone else to do so. So you see, I got a target on my back of which I must accomplish if I must remain relevant in my field.
For us in the ICT industry, people look up to us first to find a way to use AI and also fix glitches with the programs involved. But for those accountants they won't be looking to them for anything in the future. Another course that would lose relevance to AI invasion is marketing. But I don't feel theirs would come as suddenly as Accounting, however it will come nevertheless. Working for my company, I've watched two sales managers lose their jobs because my MD no longer thought he needed them seeing how much sales was coming from digital marketing. I've had to learn how to market products whose market is not in the online digital space. Very soon all products and services will be in the digital space and physical marketers would be needing a new area of specialization.
