After astonishing breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, many people worry that they will be replaced by AI. Global Google searches for “is my job safe?” have doubled in recent months, as people fear that they will be replaced with large language models (LLMs). In a recent paper Tyna Eloundou of OpenAI and colleagues say that “around 80% of the US workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of LLMs”.
Economists, however, tend to enjoy making predictions about automation more than they enjoy testing them. In the early 2010s many of them loudly predicted that robots would kill jobs by the millions, only to fall silent when employment rates across the rich world rose to all-time highs.
Few of the doom-mongers (末日论者) have a good explanation for why countries with the highest rates of tech usage around the globe, such as Japan, Singapore and the Republic of Korea, consistently have among the lowest rates of unemployment.
Here we introduce our first attempt at tracking AI’s impact on jobs. Using American data on employment by occupation, we single out white-collar workers.
White-collar roles are thought to be especially sensitive to generative AI, which is becoming ever better at logical reasoning and creativity. However, there is as yet little evidence of an AI hit to employment. In the spring of 2020 white-collar jobs rose, as many people in service occupations lost their job at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. And in the past year the white-collar share of employment in professions thought to be at risk from generative AI has risen by 0.5%.
Of course, it’s still early days for generative AI. Few firms yet use generative Al tools at large scale, so the impact on jobs could merely be delayed.
Another possibility, however, is that these new technologies will end up destroying only a small number of roles. While Al may be efficient at some tasks, it may be less good at others, such as management and working out what others need.
AI could even have a positive effect on jobs. If workers using it become more efficient, profits at their company could rise which would then allow bosses to ramp up hiring.
A recent survey by Experis, an IT-recruitment firm, points to this possibility. More than half of Britain’s employers expect AI technologies to have a positive impact on the number of their staff over the next two years, it finds.
To see how it all shakes out, we will publish updates to this analysis every few months. But for now, a job apocalypse seems a long way off.
【小题1】In terms of artificial intelligence, people worry about ______.| A．how to avoid being replaced by machines |
| B．how to keep up with the trend of technology |
| C．how to master new technological skills |
| D．how to earn higher wages by using technology |
| A．machines prove to deal a blow to employment |
| B．technological breakthroughs bring an economic boom |
| C．economic theories don’t work well in practice |
| D．it is difficult to clarify the impact of machines on jobs |
| A．have become more diverse | B．have decreased in number |
| C．have been threatened by service jobs | D．have not suffered noticeable losses |
| A．It may cause mass unemployment. | B．It may create new jobs for people. |
| C．It may enable employers to hire more. | D．It may decrease people’s salaries. |
| A．Boy Cries Wolf: Generative Al is not yet killing jobs |
| B．Batten Down the Hatches: Generative AI will replace most of human jobs |
| C．Generative AI: The greatest threat to white-collar workers. |
| D．Generative AI: The greatest invention of the 20th century |
