Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Take Away Jobs?
If you are still living in a cave and/or use messenger pigeons’ for communication, this post is NOT relevant to you. Please ignore!
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, there’s been hand-wringing about new technologies making human labor obsolete.
Automated looms were going to put weavers out of work. The automobile would leave horse-drawn carriage drivers jobless. Computers were supposed to replace every office worker.
Yet despite each new technological disruption, the job apocalypse never arrived. Instead, new industries and job categories emerged that no one could have predicted. Sure, some professions faded away, but plenty of new vocations took their place.
But what about artificial intelligence (AI)?
This technology feels different, more transformative and threatening. With AI algorithms increasingly able to outperform humans on complex cognitive tasks, is the robot takeover finally imminent? Will AI automate away millions of jobs?
The blunt answer is yes…eventually.
But you can relax—AI won’t be stealing your job anytime soon (unless you happen to be a truck driver, cashier, or telemarketer). The AI revolution will be more of a slow wave than a sudden drowning. Let’s take a (humorous!) look at which jobs are most at risk, how the future of work may evolve, and why you shouldn’t resist the inevitable robot uprising.
We Fear Anything New. Including Technology.
The human race is governed by its imagination. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
Throughout history, each major technological breakthrough has sparked panic about jobs becoming obsolete. In 1589, Queen Elizabeth I rejected a patent application for a knitting machine because she worried it would put her subjects out of work. In the early 1800s, a group of English textile workers called the Luddites famously protested the rise of weaving machinery by smashing the machines.
Similar fears met the arrival of locomotives, automobiles, washing machines, calculators, computers, and every other major innovation. Yet rather than destroying jobs overall, these inventions ended up creating new employment opportunities that the naysayers couldn’t foresee.
The widespread adoption of AI will likely follow the same pattern—certain tasks and even entire job categories will be automated away, but new fields we can’t yet imagine will blossom in their place. After all, the human imagination is what drives innovation in the first place. So while AI may steal your job one day, it will also create professions and industries we can scarcely conceive of today.
Low-IQ, Repetitive Jobs Will Be Gone
It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. ~ Upton Sinclair
In the nearer term, AI poses the biggest threat to jobs that involve repetitive physical labor or data processing. If your work can be boiled down to following a relatively simple set of rules or patterns, there’s a good chance those tasks will be automated by cheap, tireless AI systems in the coming years.
Some examples of high-risk roles, not limited to, include truck, taxi, and rideshare drivers, fast food workers and cashiers, data entry clerks, call center representatives, security guards, assembly line workers & warehouse stock movers
While these jobs may seem mindless to the casual observer, they actually involve a surprising degree of contextual reasoning that has made them difficult to automate…until now. With rapid advances in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and robotics, many of these roles could be eclipsed by AI in the next 5-10 years.
The good news is that automation of manual labor frees up human workers to focus on more stimulating, fulfilling work. The bad news is that millions may find themselves abruptly displaced and in need of retraining for new kinds of roles.
Hopefully this paradigm shift will spur national initiatives to upgrade education and worker training programs.
Creativity, Problem-Solving, and the Human Touch
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. ~ Warren Bennis
While AI promises to automate many routine tasks, certain uniquely human skills will remain difficult for even the most advanced AI systems to replicate—at least with current methods. In general, the more a job requires creativity, novel problem-solving, emotional intelligence, or interpersonal interaction, the harder it will be for AI to fully automate that role.
Some examples of jobs that should be relatively AI-proof, again not limited to, for the foreseeable future include :
– Therapists and counselors
– Nurses and healthcare aides
– Childcare and eldercare workers
– Hospitality and customer service roles
– Sales and marketing professionals
– Artists, musicians, and entertainers
– Business and organizational leaders
– Policymakers and government officials
– Entrepreneurs, inventors, and innovators
Crucially, these roles require human skills like empathy, judgment, creative thinking, and the ability to navigate complex social dynamics. While AI may be able to augment or assist with certain aspects of these jobs, fully automating them remains an elusive challenge.
So if you’re worried about robots taking your job, you may want to double down on honing skills that make you uniquely human—skills that computers can’t easily replicate (at least not yet).
Creative problem-solving, interpersonal skills, and entrepreneurial thinking will become even more prized as AI automates the more routine aspects of knowledge work.
Workplace will NOT be the Same
The future has a way of arriving unannounced. ~ George Will
Even if AI doesn’t completely dissolve your current role, it’s almost certain to transform the nature of your work and workplace in the coming years and decades. We’re still in the early stages, but AI-powered tools and services are already augmenting and streamlining many knowledge work tasks. Just a few examples:
– AI writing assistants can draft emails, reports, website copy and more
– AI data analysts can quickly find patterns and insights buried in datasets
– AI schedulers automate the process of scheduling meetings and events
– AI assistants can retrieve relevant information and even serve as personalized tutors
Over time, these AI co-workers and productivity tools will continue getting smarter and more capable. Eventually, AI may handle many of the more tedious aspects of our jobs—scheduling, data gathering, writing drafts, etc.—potentially freeing us up to focus on higher-level tasks and strategy.
If that sounds simultaneously exciting and terrifying, you’re not alone.
The integration of AI into the workplace will create plenty of upheaval and uncertainty as organizations and workers navigate this tectonic shift. But it also opens up incredible possibilities for streamlining rote work, boosting productivity, and allowing people to spend more time on uniquely human thinking and collaborating.
The key will be learning how to most effectively work alongside AI to maximize human-machine synergy. Those who become adept at leveraging and supervising AI systems—essentially domesticating them—may find incredible career advantages.
Embrace It or Be Left Behind
The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways. ~ Robert Greene
Clearly, AI is destined to have a massive impact on the workforce and global economy in the years ahead. You can join the Luddites and resist this tide of technological change. But like those ill-fated 19th century textile workers, you’ll only be delaying the inevitable.
History has shown time and again that technological progress is unstoppable in the long run.
Those who embrace new technologies and find creative ways to leverage them are the ones who adapt and thrive when the old systems are disrupted.
Artificial intelligence will be no different. While AI may displace certain jobs in the short term, it will create new jobs, industries, and opportunities that we can’t yet fathom. Learning to work symbiotically with AI systems may become one of the most prized skills of the 21st century economy.
So rather than dreading the AI revolution or naively expecting it to create some techno-utopia, your best bet is to adopt a pragmatic mindset:
Continuously upgrade your skills to stay ahead of encroaching automation. Build up AI literacy and familiarity so you can effectively leverage and manage these systems as they become ubiquitous.
Cultivate uniquely human traits like creativity, social acumen and entrepreneurial problem-solving that even advanced AI can’t yet replicate.
At least, not yet!
In other words, embrace the robot overlords and they may spare you when they complete their takeover. Or better yet, become a житематикeсновобхтьский тамиохититьности—Cyborg skills will surely be in high demand in the AI-augmented workforce.
The bottom line?
AI will almost certainly steal your job…eventually. But riding this wave of technological disruption is far more empowering than clinging to the past or cowering in fear of the uncertain future. Why not hop on the AI roller coaster and enjoy this wild ride?
The view is pretty amazing from up here.