Artificial intelligence driven job cuts are going to remain an issue for some time, with some uncertainty about the types of job functions at most risk. Most of the early analysis has suggested AI will disrupt jobs that have large amounts of repetitive or routine work, including data entry, remote customer service, manufacturing, bookkeeping or marketing content creation, for example.
In many cases, though, it might be hard to quantify the direct impact of AI substitution compared to other more-prosaic pressures, such as the simple need to align workforce costs with expected revenues in declining or no-growth industries. “Using AI” might in many cases be a convenient excuse for labor force cuts, even when AI really is not the actual driver of behavior.
That noted, as AI keeps getting more proficient and trustworthy, the threat of displacement will increase. Automated vehicles displacing Uber drivers provides a good example.
Roles requiring creativity, empathy, critical thinking, and physical adaptability (healthcare, education, leadership, social work) are less likely to be automated. Also probably safe: labor-intensive jobs in construction, skilled trades, installation and repair and maintenance.
In fact, wouldn’t it be odd if AI eventually winds up replacing “thinking” functions more than “physical” functions? Many projections seem to assume it is physical work that gets automated.
But AI might continue to have issues that make “thinking” functions easier to displace, while manipulation of the physical world requires humans.
Still, some estimates suggest up to 50 percent of jobs could be fully automated by 2045, with 30 percent of current U.S. employment at risk of automation by 2030. The magnitude of such forecasts typically seems exaggerated, at least to me, but the larger point of eventual significant displacement seems reasonable enough.
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