Nowadays we have already got AI (artificial intelligence) that can take over some roles in the process of production in the society. For example, in the manufacturing industry like automobile industry, intelligent robots are helping to realize the automation of components assembly; in the tertiary sector of the economy, for instance the banking industry, AI robots has been introduce to assist the financial service for customers. Most shockingly, AI can play chess in at a such high level that it is able to beat the world-class human chess players. Before worrying about if or when the AI will take over the land from our hand as the movies imagined, the more urgent and realistic worry should be — will it compete with and replace human workers that a great amount of people will get out of jobs?
Inevitably, AI is replacing some kinds of labor with robots, notably those with repetitive or fiddly activities as mentioned above. Especially when the labor cost nowadays is getting higher all over the world, it can be cost-efficient to let AI takes over certain jobs. As a result, this trend leads to direct economic competition between humans and machines. Some experts studying AI’s effect on labor argue that the value created by AI benefits companies more than it does workers. It can be expected that using AI would further enlarge the income gaps between different groups of people.
While the replacement effect might hold as one major consideration in the application of AI, there is some field where AI can reach beyond the human touch in the current stage; for example, AI has a great potential to assist scientists with medical research to a large extent. Specifically, making use of the AI’s ability with respect to deep learning and mass calculation, scientists are able to predict the structure of proteins, which requires considering millions of possibilities of combinations of amino acids, something that humans cannot readily do. That is, rather than thinking of substituting humans with machines, a more valuable insight would be using machines to dive into something that is hard to reach by humans and thus has not been explored yet.
Therefore, the value of AI in the future exists in creating value for instead of seizing value from human beings. With the target, there might be more jobs created than replaced.
Reference
Clive Thompson, 2022, AI Shouldn’t Compete With Workers—It Should Supercharge Them. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/ai-shouldnt-compete-with-workers-it-should-supercharge-them-turing-trap/
Bernard Marr, 2022, Is AI Really A Job Killer? These Experts Say No. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/09/23/is-ai-really-a-job-killer-these-experts-say-no/?sh=33482d0b2628
Jessica Kim-Schmid and Roshni Raveendhran, 2022, Where AI Can — and Can’t — Help Talent Management. Available at: https://hbr.org/2022/10/where-ai-can-and-cant-help-talent-management
This is a very good point regarding the use of AI as a supporting tool and only for simpler tasks which can be easily automated. Many laypersons have a misconception of AI as being more advanced than it truly is, with expectations of an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) with a consciousness, capable of thinking and acting by autonomously. However, such a possibility would take several decades according to the top minds in AI research today. Current AI models can only work on specific tasks. Hence, we should focus more on using AI as a supplemental tool for the foreseeable future, and focus on upskilling the existing population so menial and boring jobs can be automated.
Good article Lingping! I also expect that some jobs will be taken over by robots or AI solutions. However, in history many times people thought that new technologies would make their job obsolete but there was never a major disruption that it led to mass unemployment. Perhaps AI is the technology that will cause this issue to happen. Did you also think about the potential consequences of this? And how to tackle this problem? I hope robotic solutions and AI will ease physical laborious jobs, which already happened in the farming industry for example.
Interesting article that reminds me of the concept of collision vs disruption. Although on the surface it might seem like a disruption in the labor market, because it is destroying a long existing structure where workers with less skills could still thrive with labor-intensive jobs. But at the same time, is it possible for the workers to treat this phenomenon like a collision where they can adapt to and benefit from with learning about AI? I’m not entirely sure how the concept of collision can be applied to the labor market, but it sounds like an interesting topic to investigate. Thanks for the insight.
Hi Linping, thanks for sharing this. I like your conclusion that more jobs would be created than be replaced. We can see there are already significant kinds of jobs are able to be done by AI solutions such as customer services and communication. I agree with your perspectives that from the whole society side, more value may be delivered. However, I think a severe unemployment problem is still possible to happen when AI solutions become more advanced and also have some concerns that if it would be possible in the future that humans cannot learn skills leading the AI solutions anymore. Do you think this situation will happen eventually or would objections from employees that may be replaced hinder the progress of AI?
Very interesting to read your thoughts on AI and the job market, Linping. To apply the subject to the Netherlands, it is likely that job losses because of robotization/AI development are likely to be dampened by the fact that the Netherlands has a relatively strong service economy. It is mainly lower-skilled workers who are more likely that their jobs will disappear due to robotization/AI development. For the higher educated, and for the technically skilled, job security seems more likely to increase. This also applies to the income of workers. The wages of the lower educated are coming under pressure, while incomes for higher educated, on the contrary, seem to be increasing. It is important that we look together – as a society in cooperation with businesses – how we react to these developments in order to protect the people who are most vulnerable, while at the same time benefiting from the opportunities that AI offers. Let me know what you think!