AI Costing Humans Their Jobs

By: Renee B.

       Ever heard of Chat GPT? This online writing tool is a form of AI, or artificial intelligence, meant to create a writing piece based on prompts that you give it. This technology has been steadily creeping into society for years now, and writing isn’t the limit. At this point, AI is able to take over human jobs. 

       According to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, 400 million workers are expected to be displaced from 2016 to 2030. That’s 15% of the world’s jobs, and it could even go up to 30% within that time frame. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report suggests that the most unemployed will be women and people with very little education. 

       Guests at Sergio’s, a restaurant in Miami, Florida, saw this takeover firsthand. Recently, robots with AI have been zipping and swerving around customers, delivering plates of food to the correct tables. While the CEO, Carlos Gazuita, found benefits, many of the servers and waitresses are scared to lose their jobs permanently. This is the case with even more employees than the wait staff at Sergio’s. Anyone from cashiers to lawyers to people working in marketing could be replaced. These aren’t the only careers being affected, though. 

       Shockingly, AI has become advanced enough to take over average office jobs. “To be brutally honest, we had a hierarchy of things that technology could do, and we felt comfortable saying things like creative work, professional work, emotional intelligence would be hard for machines to ever do. Now that’s all been upended,” says Erik Brynjolfsson from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. Now, it’s become clear that no industries are safe. In fact, the uncertainty around this entire topic just continues to bubble up. 

       This entire takeover began after the COVID 19 pandemic when lots of employees were unable to return to work. "We've seen an increase in AI-related displacement and redefinition of work accelerated during COVID,” according to Anu Madgavkar, head of labor market research at McKinsey Global Institute. After the pandemic had mostly come to a close, Sergio’s faced a rush of customers while dealing with a lack of wait staff with the ability to come in to work. AI seemed to be the perfect solution. 

       However, experts have begun to learn that the quick fix of artificial intelligence, with its many perks, can also have some negative effects, besides high unemployment. Anu Madgavkar commented on this particular problem. “The shift in the demand for work into higher-paid, better-skilled jobs could result in inequality.” Now, people are pushing for higher-paid careers, ones that seem untouchable to AI. The events could lead to many getting pushed to low-paying positions and eventually replaced. 

       In fact, technology has been displacing human workers for decades already. Even in 1901, when they began mass production of automobiles, there was no need for skilled employees, only a single person to do the same thing all day. The takeover is evident in places like Walmart, or a drive thru, where cashiers have been ousted from their positions, which are being filled by technology. AI is the next step, and it can do much more than the average computer.

       Despite the countless studies and reports, this entire topic is surrounded by a huge cloud of uncertainty, leaving workers to wonder what their job will look like in the future. “Jobs are definitely going to go away, full stop,” as Sam Altman of OpenAI, the company behind Chat GPT, puts it. Artificial intelligence taking over human jobs is a very real issue, and something that is still very hazy. Being informed and prepared can be a real defense against this. Times change, and the best thing you can do is adapt to the new conditions. Doing so could offer you a much brighter future.