CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg News more than 7,800 jobs could be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the coming years.

He thinks that AI could easily do back-office functions such as human resources, and nearly a third of non-customer-facing roles could be replaced by AI and automation in five years.

The reduction could include not replacing roles vacated by attrition, IBM said.

Oddly when companies talk about AI replacing workers, they never talk about getting rid of the most expensive and least useful jobs. Managers whose only function is to get in the way of people doing their jobs by forcing them into meetings about moving cheese and kicking the ball running could easily be replaced by machines that do not require stock options.