Photo credit, Getty Images
- Author, By Chris Vallance
- Role, Technology journalist
Artificial intelligence (AI) might replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs, according to a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs.
It might replace a quarter of professional tasks in the United States and Europe, but might also be the source of new jobs and a productivity boom.
Finally, it might increase the total annual value of goods and services produced worldwide by 7%.
Generative AI, capable of creating content indistinguishable from human work, is “a major breakthrough”, according to the report.
Employment prospects
The UK government wants to promote investment in AI in the UK, which it says will “ultimately boost productivity across the economy”, and has tried to reassure the public of its impact .
“We want to make sure that AI complements the way we work in the UK, without disrupting it, that it improves our jobs instead of taking them away,” said Michelle Donelan, Secretary of State for Technology, at the Sun.
The report highlights that the impact of AI will vary by sector: 46% of administrative tasks and 44% of legal tasks might be automated, but only 6% in the construction sector and 4% in the maintenance sector.
BBC News has previously reported concerns from some artists who fear AI image generators will harm their job prospects.
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Lower wages
“The one thing I know for sure is that there is no way of knowing how many jobs will be replaced by generative AI,” said Carl Benedikt Frey, director of the future of work at the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, to BBC News.
“What ChatGPT does, for example, is allow more people with average writing skills to produce essays and articles.
“Journalists will therefore face increased competition, which will drive down wages, unless the demand for this type of work increases significantly.
“Take the example of the introduction of GPS technology and platforms like Uber. Suddenly knowing all the streets of London lost a lot of its value – and so incumbent drivers suffered significant drops in salary, around 10% according to our research.
“The result has been lower wages, not fewer drivers.
“Over the next few years, generative AI will likely have similar effects on a broader set of creative tasks.
A pinch of salt
According to research cited in the report, 60% of workers are in occupations that did not exist in 1940.
But other studies suggest that technological change since the 1980s has displaced workers faster than it has created jobs.
And if generative AI is similar to earlier advances in information technology, the report concludes that it might reduce employment in the short term.
The long-term impact of AI is highly uncertain, however, Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, told BBC News, “and any firm predictions should therefore be taken with a grain of salt”.
“We don’t know how the technology will evolve or how companies will integrate it into the way they work,” he said.
“That’s not to say that AI won’t disrupt the way we work, but we should also focus on the potential gains in living standards from more productive work and less expensive services, as well as the risk of being left behind if other companies and economies adapt better to technological change.
