Will Artificial Intelligence Take Your Job?

I don’t understand why people aren’t being more clear and direct about the impact artificial intelligence (AI) will have (and is already having) on the workforce.

Jobs are disappearing. theguardian.com, bbc.com, challengergray.com

Some jobs are at risk of disappearing forever.

Almost all jobs are likely to change.

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke told employees in a memo earlier this year that they’ll have to demonstrate that jobs can’t be done by artificial intelligence before requesting more headcount and resources. cnbc.com

And you have to know that Tobi isn’t alone.

But maybe other CEOs don’t have the balls that Tobi has.

Let’s talk about some examples where the impacts might be felt first.

Suppose your job involves moving data from tools into spreadsheets and back into tools, such as a middle management role in a sales organization; AI can probably do that better than you, and your job is likely at risk.

Suppose your job involves graphic design, copywriting, copy editing, sound and video production, or editing; there’s a whole whack of AI tools for that, and your job is likely at risk.

Suppose your job involves creating presentations and sharing them with people in Zoom meetings or via email; there are some fantastic AI tools for that, and your job is likely at risk.

Suppose your job involves answering the same type of questions for customers who are often confused, frustrated, or disappointed; there are now AI receptionists, phone tools, and customer service agents to address that, and your job is likely at risk.

Suppose your job involves writing code, building prototype apps and solving problems with data. Yep, you guessed it: your job is likely at risk.

Fundamentally, if your job involves a lot of copy and paste (note: most jobs, including the writing of this post, involve a lot of copy and paste), then your job is at risk of being replaced by AI.

AI fucking loves copying and pasting. It’s one of the things it excels at.

None of this is news.

Goldman Sachs published a report in 2023 that suggested that artificial intelligence (AI) could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs. bbc.com 

Not all jobs will be impacted equally.

A 2024 study by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that 60% of administrative tasks are automatable. forbes.com

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and OpenAI found that some educated white-collar workers, earning up to $80,000 per year, are the most likely to be affected by workforce automation. forbes.com

Axios made a lot of noise earlier this year with its interview with Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei. “AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Amodei told us in an interview from his San Francisco office.” axios.com

Axios went on to say, “Lawmakers don’t get it or don’t believe it. CEOs are afraid to talk about it. Many workers won’t realize the risks posed by the possible job apocalypse — until after it hits.”

This year, Goldman ironically walked back its 2023 estimates and suggested that it simply cannot predict how AI will impact the workforce. fortune.com

Then Goldman made news by testing an autonomous software engineer called Devin from artificial intelligence startup Cognition, which is expected to work among the firm’s 12,000 existing human developers. cnbc.com

But Goldman isn’t wrong to claim ambiguity.

In a recent address at the University of Toronto, Ilya Sutskever, a former OpenAI pioneer, warns that as AI begins to self-improve, its trajectory may become “extremely unpredictable and unimaginable,” ushering in a rapid advance beyond human control and difficult to estimate. youtube.com

The capability of AI is roughly doubling every six months. ourworldindata.org

Although you might still have a job today, how do you expect to compete with the intelligence of an AI that is already at near-genius levels, materially cheaper than you, and is going to double in capability in another 6 months and every 6 months thereafter? forbes.com

But it isn’t just jobs and work that are changing.

Companies are likely to entirely transform how they organize and define the concept of “workforce.” The companies that adapt and survive won’t be those that train existing jobholders to use AI tools. They’ll be the ones that reimagine entirely how work gets done.

In the interim, it is likely a good idea to know your enemy.

If you aren’t already using them daily, try out an AI tool for some mundane task every day.

Play with it.

Learn and experiment with different prompts.

Get comfortable learning skills that fall outside your comfort zone.

However, that won’t guarantee you any sort of job security.