Will AI replace me? Part of me hopes so
By Tom Haynes
Only two weeks have gone by since Elon Musk proclaimed to Rishi Sunak that AI will one day put an end to work , but I’m not sure even the Prime Minister – who recoiled at the suggestion – expected to see him proven right so quickly.
The effects of AI on the jobs market cannot be understated: workers in the technology industry are already seeing fewer job ads than they were a year before ChatGPT took over the world , according to data from job website Adzuna.
AI’s unstoppable advance is getting closer to home for me, too. My former employer, Reach PLC, last week announced some 450 redundancies – less than a year after the publisher started using AI to churn out articles .
It’s a terrifying landscape for journalists. With legacy publishers making sweeping job cuts, many of my peers have turned to freelancing, but even that isn’t safe from AI.?
A fascinating study published by the FT last week showed white-collar freelancers are being offered fewer gigs, and being paid much, much less – suggesting generative AI was already taking away digital freelancers’ work, regardless of how well they were paid to begin with.?
I won’t pretend like I haven’t flirted with the idea of letting ChatGPT muck in with my work, but as I found out when the software tried and failed to write me something as basic as a CV , it is simply too thick right now to be worth the hassle. But would I do it if I could get away with it? Probably.
The truth is – and I think what Elon was getting at – is that few white-collar jobs couldn’t be sped up if workers were allowed to use AI with a bit of common sense.
Not to make it about journalism yet again, but across the pond, the menial gruntwork of online publishing is already being outsourced to AI. Buzzfeed, for instance, now uses a chatbot named Buzzy the Robot to create the kind of dry guides and quizzes no one enjoys writing.?
领英推荐
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As Luke Winkie wrote in Slate earlier this year: “Nothing about the experience [of writing these articles] improves your prose, or sharpens your acumen, or makes you a more dogged journalist. If anything, you’ll come away from the experience feeling irrevocably jaded. That’s what makes Buzzy a natural fit for the gig; he’s incapable of internalising despair.”
Of course, it’s naive to think the AI revolution will just stop at freeing up our time, and you only have to look at those aforementioned redundancies to see where we might be without some – or any – regulation in how private companies use such software. But I like to think that in the utopia Elon Musk envisages, AI will at least strip away the parts of our jobs that have us clock-watching, and create more space for meaningful work.
5 stories to read this week
Tom's pick:
?? Stay up to date with the week's most important tax, property, investing and pensions news and analysis, plus receive useful tips by?signing up for free to our Money Newsletter .
ITSM Senior Consultant searching New Project
1 年No, AI will never replace Me. AI doesn't have a Heart, physical or emotionally speaking. But I DO. I have my very own DNA. It's My Unique Genetic Code, unmatchable, wherever AI may search. I have an inherent Moral Compass which is my Conscience. I have Freedom of Choice - I don't require Programming with someone else's ideas. And I don't have to be "Artificial" in my existence (unless I decide to) - once again, that is a Conscientious, Responsible Choice I Make. ??Ω
Founder at DH Website Design & Creation Services est 2024
1 年I do not believe AI will replace people I think its great for people with mental health issues its less pressure on their brains to get instant answers compared to thinking for ages. It also enables the mind to be more relaxed in my opinion as the instant answer means there is more time to do other things. AI can only be good in my eyes however I think its the way forwards for many people worldwide. ?? as founder of my own book printing services business it can only aid and assist me in the challenging years ahead.
| Organisational Epistemologist | Change Wizard | Political Activist | Local Economic Development |
1 年AI (and its sister technology, robotics) has already laid waste to unskilled blue collar jobs. No one stood up for them particularly over paid “ professionals”. AI/robotics is now coming for lawyers who know where to find precedents or can stand wading through documents looking for gotchas, accountants who have memorised ‘debits on the left’, and policymakers who know 10 ways to write a cabinet paper. These people kidded themselves that they were upper class and protected from the processes that had displaced the assembly line oiks. LLMs (large language models not master of laws) will eat white collar jobs and allow white collar workers to meet a different class of people on the dole queue. Maybe blue collar technicians like plumbers, electricians, and cctv installers and service workers like janitors will keep their jobs for a while. Unsurprisingly, politicians (especially 3rd rate ones) will hide their heads in the sand but Musk is right. How we handle AI is urgent and requires serious thinking followed by urgent action.