How AI and Automation Will Disrupt Our Jobs
It is no doubt that we are in the Information Age – a new era of continuous technological advancement. Every new technology related finding and development is transforming our lives day by day. This has been the case since the early 19th century with the Industrial Revolution, but during the last decades, humankind has shifted gears. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots were only seen as science-fiction in the past, today these concepts have slowly become reality. One of the most debated subjects of AI and automation is the effect they have – and will have – on the job market.
Automation has already started to take place; today Amazon is using thousands of robots in their warehouses and manufacturing companies are using robotic arms in the assembly line of factories. As the switch from humans to machines become more visible, more workers have started to worry about their job security and the threat of replacement by machines in the near future. According to a McKinsey Research study, only less than 5% of entire jobs could be totally automated with current technology. The study also found out that 45% of jobs could adopt automation.
One question that arises with this is: Which job groups are safe? Almost every job has some aspect that can be automated with technology, but very few jobs can be totally automated. Although there is no guarantee that a job group will be safe forever, it is certain that for the next few decades, some job groups are unlikely to be automated. In a critically acclaimed study published in 2013, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne found out that 47% of workers in 702 different occupations in the United States had high risk of automation. Some job groups they rated as having a high probability of computerization are tele-markets, accountants, delivery drives, and retail salespeople. On the other hand, the job groups they rated as low probability of computerization are recreational therapists, dentists, athletic trainers, and hairdressers. The probability of a job group getting automated depends mainly on whether it is routine or not.
Technology never stagnates and as time goes by, computers will become more intelligent. No matter how intelligent they get, computers will lack certain features that differentiate humankind from a programmed metal scrap. Jobs with tasks that include critical thinking, strategy, creativity, or elements of interpersonal skills seem unlikely to be automated in the foreseeable future.
Although many people tend to believe that automation only threatens low-paid un-skilled workers, automation is collar-blind. Many white-collar jobs that require routine tasks are also very vulnerable to automation. Well-paid and skilled jobs such as accountants and auditors have already started to be replaced by AI-powered software.
AI and automation has disrupted many jobs, but it is very hard for it sweep out all workers in a sector. Today, AI services can automatically fill forms or scan through millions of documents at a fraction of time and cost. In the Law industry, paralegals are more prone to be fully automated than lawyers. Similarly, AI systems that hospitals have started to use to diagnose cancers from X-Ray scans perform better than doctors, but we still need doctors to perform an operation – at least for now.
The first example of automation was the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. When weaving machines were introduced to the factories, the factory workers protested it with the thought that the machines would replace them and leave them unemployed. In reality, the opposite happened. The machines made the cloth making process less costly, so the price of clothes dropped. Demand for clothing increased, so firms had to increase production. Factories started to hire more workers to do other tasks that the weaving machine couldn’t. Fast forward to present time, the garment industry is one of the largest sectors in the world, creating income for millions of people.
There are many opposing views on how technological advancements will transform the job market. Economists and historians tend to believe that once again, the changes will end up creating more new jobs in other industries than the ones it will terminate. Previously, historical examples didn’t threaten human labor but instead, added to human productivity and created more available jobs. However, this time, AI and automation have a very broad base and the capability of directly eliminating human dependence on tasks. In his book “Rise of Robots”, Martin Ford surmises that in previous stages of automation, workers would switch from one un-skilled job to another, but now they will only be able to avoid unemployment by switching from unskilled jobs to non-routine skilled jobs.
Advancements in the fields of AI and automation can and will provide solutions to many global problems in the future, as well as deliver economic benefits to society through increased quality and lower prices. It will create many high-paying skilled jobs – mostly in the tech industry – as well as emerge brand-new industries and job groups. Looking at the subject from a negative perspective would cause most people to miss the bigger picture.
The future is inevitable and constantly changing. It is certain that technological advancements will disrupt the dynamics of the labor market but to make this transition simpler, the focus should be on how to create new job opportunities and move the unemployed labor force to these jobs. Job descriptions, as well as the skills required, will change sharply, but this isn’t something that will happen for the first time. Look back and compare how every single job has evolved in the past ten years. The skill-gap needs to be eliminated to displace the labor force to new job groups without causing structural unemployment. This could only be possible with the most powerful tool the humankind has: education.