¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·

ARTIFICIAL Intelligence has been one of the most hyped topics worldwide over the past few years, and Bangladesh is no exception. Yet thoughtful analysis and meaningful discussion on this subject have remained limited. In Bangladesh, where the romanticisation of any new concept tends to take off easily, fuelling viral posts, boosting social media viewership, and elevating hyper-optimistic motivational figures. Any serious examination of such an important topic is still at a nascent stage.

However, the sooner we shift gears to start thinking critically about AI, the better. While we continue to romanticise it as a silver bullet for humanity’s problems, the techno-capitalist system is already mobilising its resources to gain even greater control over collective human intelligence — turning AI into a profit-making machine that risks reducing us to mere consumers, with little say in how this technology will shape our lives and control our economy in the future.

Ìý

Why is AI concerning?

AI, COUPLED with machine learning, unlike any previous technological advancement, has the unique ability to develop its own features and characteristics. Throughout history, technology and invention have primarily aimed to reduce human labour. For example, the motorised sewing machine made the laborious task of sewing much easier — an operator simply needed to follow the given design and place the fabric under the needle, and the machine would do the rest. In that case, the operator still needed to know how to run the machine.

However, with the advent of AI, the sewing robot, or ‘sewbot’, will no longer require an operator, a designer, or even a supervisor. The owner will only need to provide a few basic inputs — such as the target country or cultural group for which the design is intended and the required quantity — and then the system will automatically generate multiple designs, perhaps customised for different age groups, and produce exactly the specified number of garments. This process could completely eliminate the roles of designers and a vast number of garment workers who currently operate sewing machines.

In the earlier phase of industrial mechanisation, the sewing machine brought a certain degree of ease to workers, though the real gains in efficiency mostly benefited factory owners rather than labourers — many of whom still struggle to secure even minimum wages. This time, however, with AI-driven automation, the consequences could be far more severe: entire segments of the garment workforce may be displaced, and profits could be concentrated solely in the hands of factory owners. Moreover, as artificial intelligence becomes integrated into every possible machine, many blue-collar jobs will completely become redundant, and that does not mean white-collar workers will be spared.

Ìý

Is AI all bad?

THE development of any technology is not inherently bad; rather, it is the way it is applied that determines its impact. AI, for instance, holds immense potential to make our lives easier, from improving access to quality healthcare for the masses and enabling near-accurate weather forecasting to supporting precision farming, enhancing power plant safety, and offering customised education, among many others. However, in an already polarised society and a deeply divided global economy, AI could make the situation even worse if the prevailing ‘winner-takes-all’ system remains unchanged.

History shows that the evolution of technology and its benefits to humanity have been anything but evenly distributed. Since 1973, the economic gains from technological progress have gone almost exclusively to those at the top. While productivity has risen by about 150 per cent and corporate profits have increased more than 370 per cent, the real wages of the average American worker have actually declined by nearly $30 a week (US Bureau of Labour Statistics & FRED, 2025).

Massive layoffs have already begun in countries where AI is being widely integrated into industry, and it is only a matter of time before a similar wave reaches Bangladesh. For example, Amazon, which made $59.2 billion in profits last year, has laid off 27,000 employees since 2022, while stating, ‘We expect that [generative artificial intelligence and agents] will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company’ (CNBC, 2025; Andy Jassy, 2025). Walmart, which made $19.4 billion in profits in 2024, has cut 70,000 jobs over the past five years while increasing revenues by $150 billion (Financial Times, 2025). This list could go on and on, and it should be a red flag for humanity, as the rich are getting ultra-richer while the poor are being pushed toward nothing, largely due to AI-based applications at this moment.

Ìý

Will Bangladesh be spared?Ìý

BANGLADESH has so far enjoyed a competitive advantage in the global export economy, largely at the expense of its low-wage workers. The country’s GDP growth has benefited from the outsourcing of consumption by wealthy, industrialised nations, taking advantage of a system where air, water, soil, and labour could be exploited at relatively low cost. However, this advantage may not last much longer. With the rise of AI and robotics, manufacturing hubs may relocate to the destination countries — those where the actual demand for the products exists — as cheap labour becomes a less important factor in the overall equation of cost efficiency. This is not something to be feared, for it could happen in the distant future; rather, it has already started taking place. In 2017 a Chinese garment company invested $20 million in the construction of a sewing factory in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, and deployed 330 robots to have the ability to make one T-shirt in every 22 seconds and thus to produce 800,000 T-shirts a day to allow them to have their final product completed in a geographical setting much closer to their customer base, saving money on transportation expenses. The company chairman, Tang Xinhong, said in a press release, ‘Around the world, even the cheapest labour market can’t compete with us.’ (TY Garments USA, 2018, Automated Couture: Using Robots to Make Clothing).

In Bangladesh, automation has reduced the need for human labour in the production process of the garment sector by nearly 31 per cent (The Daily Star, December 23, 2024). The rise of AI, combined with the election of right-wing leaders in Western and European countries, could worsen the situation, potentially leading to the reshoring of production hubs to those countries in order to maximise profits.ÌýÌý

Ìý

The reverse plan

IN THE age of AI, we would not need to worry about negative outcomes if the global system were driven by fairness, humanity, and inclusion. If AI-powered robots are going to perform most tasks — from driving and mining to housekeeping — then our individual working hours should be reduced to a very minimal level, while we receive the same or even higher income due to the increased productivity of machines. People’s role could then be to give instructions to AI and monitor its work under strict human oversight, governed by a strong regulatory framework. In such a world, people would have more time to care for one another, to enjoy richer private, social, and community life, and to engage more deeply in arts, literature, and other creative pursuits.

But it is humanity’s greatest misfortune that we are living in an age of mistrust, where nations and corporations are racing to outdo one another. AI development has become a contest between the United States and China — the two major hubs of this global race, influencing the entire world without anyone truly knowing which direction it is heading. The AI landscape is turning into a hyperactive avalanche field, where everything seems to be happening except one crucial thing: ensuring human welfare. Companies have already begun recruiting employees to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, in pursuit of hyper-productivity and global AI dominance. In February, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told employees working on Gemini that he recommended being in the office every weekday, adding that 60 hours a week is the ‘sweet spot’ for productivity. These are certainly not good signs and will soon create a ripple effect across the world. (Nolan, B., 2025, Bay-Area AI Startups Are Turning to China’s ‘996’ Working Model, Fortune, 1 August.)

Definitely, AI has given humanity a chance to take collective action and nurture global solidarity in the face of the climate emergency to act as true global citizens. At the end of the day, it is all about resource distribution. The richest 1 per cent now possess more wealth than the bottom 95 per cent of the world’s population combined, which is not only insane but utterly disgusting. (Oxfam, 2024, September 23). The oligarchs and multibillionaires are now trying to seize this new opportunity to enslave humanity within their relentless profit-making system — a system we must resist and challenge at individual, societal, national, and global levels for us and for our future generations to come.

Ìý

ÌýMowdud Rahman is a researcher and engineer.