AI and the future of jobs.
The expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) into our lives and livelihoods makes it clear that we must brace for a future of uncertainty about our jobs. AI has shown that it has the capability of handling tasks that previously were only deemed fit for humans. Tasks that involved human creativity, and tasks in administrative and legal positions were ruled out as being human-centered. However, with the emergence of Generative AI, works that are indistinguishable from human works have been witnessed all over the internet. In this AI era, there is a future of hope where new careers that did not exist before might arise. On the contrary, there is also a future of despair where AI might do more harm than good. It might take with it more jobs than it will create.
Firstly, the prospects of AI having positive impacts on our daily careers are up in the air until you understand that with the help of AI productivity might boom. It might also complement the way we do our jobs rather than disrupt it. That sounds promising. Nobody knows for sure what the result of this might be. The normal human way of life is that the higher-skilled members of society are poised to be more successful in their careers as compared to their low-skilled mates. Unfortunately, by leveraging AI the low-skilled workers might match the higher-skilled colleagues and this will see competition in the job market soar to a level high. This surge in competition will result in a decrease in wages as the demand for the affected careers will be low.
Secondly, according to research, 60% of workers are in careers that did not exist in the 50’s. Contrary research, however, states that technological advancement since 1980 has displaced more workers at a higher rate than it created. Therefore, if Generative AI is an advancement in technology- which I think it is, then it might kill more jobs than it will create. It’s however uncertain at the moment what the long-term effects of this might be. Little is still of how the technology will advance and how companies will get to use it.
Making a career choice in this AI era is proving to be difficult as the future is uncertain. In as much it feels like some careers — especially the jobs that are in the digital space, might be the ones that will be greatly affected we don’t know yet to what magnitude. Amid this confusion, an inevitable question comes to mind: Which jobs will AI eventually replace, and which job will survive the longest to be the last occupation of the human worker?
Lastly, it might be a far-fetched idea to argue that AI will take over all human jobs. Over the years technological advancements have always surpassed human estimations of their limits and we’ve seen some underperform their estimations. What might be the case with Generative AI? In as much we think that human cognitive abilities will be much needed in some careers like perfoming surgery. I would admit that I would not be surprised to see a fully sophisticated AI robot that can carry out surgery on its own in the near future. We ought to focus too on the potential gains from fast-paced work and cheaper services, as well as the risk of falling behind to societies that will better adapt to the changes.
