AI's Job Creation Potential: Assessing Automation Apocalypse

There are always two sides to every coin and artificial intelligence (AI) is no exception. Ever since its inception there has been controversy and incessant fear regarding the allegedly impending ‘automation apocalypse’. This said apocalypse revolves around the concept of “the robots” taking over our jobs and stems from human insecurity and unwillingness to use the robots for their own benefit.

The most recent example of these fears hitting close to home was the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as well as the accelerated development of AI in the past few decades. In 2017 technological research and consulting firm Gartner predicted that by 2020 AI will eliminate 1.8 million jobs while creating 2.3 million more, with the number of jobs varying by industry.

This foresight was more or less accurate with AI being able to create more jobs while improving the efficiency of pre-existing ones as well. A 2022 study by the University of Warwick surveyed UK business leaders. The findings revealed that the introduction of AI was found to be 26% more likely to result in job destruction and 28.4% more likely to create jobs than investments in other technologies.

Although a 2.4% difference may not seem like much, little drops make the mighty ocean. It’s unquestionable that there is significant and unavoidable change coming in the near future. And everyone will be affected by it.

AI is already causing disruption in various industries. Just recently an AI-generated art piece won the first prize at the Colorado State Fair for the category of ‘digital art/digitally manipulated photography.’ The artwork called Théatre D’opéra Spatial was created by Jason. M. Allen using Midjourney which is an AI program that turns text prompts into hyper-realistic images.It sent the art community into uproar with artists rallying against AI-generated art programs and calling the award ethically wrong and even deeming it as “cheating.”

Source: The New York Times

The negative reaction mainly stemmed from a deeper and emotional human concern regarding AI. To think that it’s impossible for anyone to replicate your brushstrokes and vision only for a machine to end up doing just that in a matter of minutes. The idea of AI being able to easily execute things that were previously considered unique and sacred to humans like art is scary indeed.

This often leads to a sense of existential dread among humans which is understandable to say the least. It’s hard to say that anyone is fully immune to it. Even the greatest of minds may feel unnerved by the thought of AI replacing them. The key is to accept and adjust your mentality to work alongside AI.

The Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman commented on the impending disruption caused by AI, talking about how when humans face exponential change they’re not able to adapt to it easily. “And clearly AI is going to win [against human intelligence].” AI is not perfect, it’s flawed but so is human reasoning. If both were to go head to head, AI would triumph.

But that’s not the end of the world because contrary to popular belief AI’s most fatal flaw is itself. The recently released, equal parts lauded and condemned, ChatGPT is revolutionary and is thought to change the world. But it comes with its share of flaws and human intervention is required to amend those flaws and fill in the gaps.

The matter of fact is that the development of AI is outpacing human capability to keep up with it.

According to The Future of Jobs Report 2020 published by the World Economic Forum, AI will displace 85 million jobs and create 97 million new jobs by 2025. Rapid developments lead to job creation but the question is: do the workers have the required skills (yet) to take on these jobs?

Up-skill is the least humans can do to take advantage of these job opportunities created by AI. If we think about it, then around a decade ago jobs like ‘data detective’ or ‘ethical sourcing officer’ didn’t even exist. It’s because of the surge in AI tech that these jobs were created and individuals who upskilled themselves in time were able to utilize these opportunities.

Investing in retraining programs for workers would be a good initiative by organizations who plan to invest in AI and have workers facing the risk of losing their jobs because of it. AI is not self-operational and requires human involvement to maximize its full use. This is mutually beneficial for both the enterprise and the workers who are at risk of losing their jobs.

AI can help improve productivity and automate repetitive tasks, allowing employees to focus on more complex and creative work.

Data science and machine learning are just some of the fields that AI is creating job opportunities for. As artificial intelligence continues to expand in industries like healthcare and education, its job creation potential is slowly being realized and maximized. The automation apocalypse is but a myth with AI predicted to and having created more jobs than it will or has displaced.

An individual’s ability to adapt, however, will play a crucial role with those that succeed in doing so being able to harness the power of AI, while those that don’t try will be left in the dust and realize their fear of being “replaced by robots.”