Who's afraid of the Big Bad A.I.? The Future of Jobs and the Jobs of the Future

"A new technology bids to transform the human cognitive process as it has not been shaken up since the invention of printing. The technology that printed the Gutenberg Bible in 1455 made abstract human thought communicable generally and rapidly. But new technology today reverses that process. Whereas the printing press caused a profusion of modern human thought, the new technology achieves its distillation and elaboration. In the process, it creates a gap between human knowledge and human understanding. If we are to navigate this transformation successfully, new concepts of human thought and interaction with machines will need to be developed. This is the essential challenge of the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

The new technology is known as generative artificial intelligence; GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer. ChatGPT, developed at the OpenAI research laboratory, is now able to converse with humans. As its capacities become broader, they will redefine human knowledge, accelerate changes in the fabric of our reality, and reorganize politics and society.(Kissinger, Schmidt, & Huttenlocher, 2023)

When Henry Kissinger and Eric Schmidt publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled ChatGPT Heralds an Intellectual Revolution: Generative artificial intelligence presents a philosophical and practical challenge on a scale not experienced since the start of the Enlightenment, we can be sure that something out of the ordinary is on our way.

This article is the first of a series to discuss the impact and an alternative approach to a new, revolutionary component of e-performance: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its latest and most advanced form yet.

AI-generated Job losses - jobs gained.

There would be 75-375 million jobs replaced by AI between 2017 and 2035. Still, studies of McKinsey and PwC show that recent history provides evidence that the creation of new jobs or the increase in scope and productivity of existing ones and the increase in per capita income and purchasing power will significantly compensate the losses.

The key priorities will be (a) economic growth propelled by a dramatic increase in productivity; (b) skills upgrade from basic technical to social and managerial; (c) having a fluid labor market and (d) transition support, such as minimum living wage, reskilling and general investment in human capital.

The speed and impact of replacement will depend on economic development (more in OECD countries, less replacements and job and wage gains in developing economies)

The case for optimism

The history of technological revolutions show a net gain in jobs and in income and life expectancy since the Industrial Revolution to our days

And since the computer age (1980) new jobs created sharply exceeded those replaced

Such was the case with personal computers that created six times more jobs than they replaced

and ushered what Richard Florida called "the creative class."

The assembly line 100 years before also generated ten time more jobs than it destroyed. And it raised the minimum salary from 2 to 5 dollars a day from the start.

McKinsey estimates that AI-generated US Job losses will vary in three possible scenarios over time with a net positive towards 2035

The real challenge of AI is education and reskilling of the workforce.

NEXT ARTICLE: A CHAT GPT "ROAD TEST"