Is AI coming for your job?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard something about ChatGPT over the past couple of months. ChatGPT is an AI language processing tool that allows you to have human-like conversations with a chatbot. It can respond by writing essays, code, emails, lyrics, prose – basically any kind of language-based response you’re seeking. The technology behind ChatGPT isn’t actually even particularly new – it’s just that this model has synthesised it and presented it to the public in a highly accessible way.

The advent of ChatGPT has prompted a whole new wave of conversations around the kinds of jobs that AI will render redundant in the future.?

So which jobs are going?

There are a variety of opinions on this, but the general consensus is that the jobs that are most at risk are those that involve repetitive, menial tasks and that don’t require a high level of social or emotional intelligence. Data entry, certain types of manufacturing, retail service and receptionist roles are a few examples of jobs that may be phased out. Some have already gone.

But one potentially at-risk area that might surprise you is medicine. Robotic doctors have the capacity to store a lot more information than a human can. They will be able to make more accurate prescriptions and assessments. This also has implications for surgical procedures (which can potentially be completed with a higher degree of accuracy by an advanced machine) and the pharmaceutical industry.?

Don’t panic

There have been many times throughout history that a technological advancement has created widespread fear about rendering huge swathes of the workforce redundant, but things never quite pan out as predicted. Automation creates opportunities. Some jobs may disappear that no one expected, but equally, other jobs will be are created that nobody anticipated. Machines may vastly increase productivity in certain areas, but they require human oversight.?

This?recent SMH article does a great job of summarising why. “Centrally,” it says, “they [AI] don’t actually understand what they are talking about.” Sydney-based copywriter Rachel Green adds that AI lacks the “human element of cadence, voice of the customer, flow, idiom, even human empathy.”

Can you teach a machine to feel?

Put simply, many jobs have nuances to them that require interpretation from a sentient being. Emotional intelligence is the most difficult area to teach an AI, as it cuts to the very core of what makes us human (on a related side note, check out?this?recent article of ours on the benefits of EQ in the workforce ).

In this area, there is a long way to go.?We make a lot of complex decisions on a daily basis that we take for granted – both in our personal lives and working careers. AI can duplicate many of these decision patterns, but not all of them.?

This terrific piece in Medium?eloquently summaries this: “One of the main limitations of current AI and emotion research is that it is focused on recognizing and responding to emotions, rather than experiencing them… This is due to the complex psychological and physiological states that underlie emotions, which are driven by unique personal values, goals, and experiences that are difficult to replicate in machines.

While research into the field of AI and emotions is ongoing, it is likely that it will be some time before we are able to create machines that can truly feel emotions.”