For several years now, I have been writing about the impending impact of AI on the jobs market, though most people don't take this very seriously, as they think that we will just reskill and pivot to do other things, as new jobs and markets will be created. It is true they will, but unlikely at the rate needed to replace what was taken over by automation.
Morgan Stanley recently released a report how it sees the impact of AI on the jobs market over the next decade and it isn't pretty reading, for a whole host of current, full-time roles. For instance, Office and Administration could see a 46% decline in jobs. There are about 2.8 million of those types of jobs in the US at the moment and about 400K in Australia.
Yet, there are other factors to consider other than the total numbers, because for instance, in that particular field, 80% of the workforce is made up of women. That means that if about 1.5 of the 3 million lose their job, that will be 1.2 million women in the workforce. In the next category of Legal, it is largely the same, where 82% of all legal assistants are women.
If you go down that list, actually quite a few of those industries are dominated by women. But, automation isn't about oppressing women, it is about empowering profits.
While the eyes might be drawn to the various jobs on the left hand side of the chart, the most telling aspect is in the info box on the right, where they expect a +7% annual growth in GDP as a result of AI-driven productivity. The asterisk is, "once about half the businesses have adopted generative AI"
What does 7% a year mean?
That is a doubling in GDP in a decade.
What is a simple definition of GDP?
GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services—that is, those that are bought by the final user—produced in a country in a given period of time (say a quarter or a year). It counts all of the output generated within the borders of a country.
We here a lot about GDP, but it really is a pretty useless metric in many respects, because it looks at the total value, without looking at who or what is producing it. GDP can keep increasing, even automation is putting people out of work and unemployment is high. However, because robots don't pay tax, there is far more profit for the corporations that employee them and, far less income for governments to look after their citizens, who are increasingly finding themselves out of work.
As society functions through the lens of the financial economy, it is going to get even more misaligned in incentive between profiteering and human wellbeing. And this is why people should be very careful trusting all of those corporations and people saying that there is nothing to fear from AI, because they know the value of it for them. They have an agenda.
And a lot of skin in the game.
While the chart topped out at 46%, the average for all industries is actually 25%, which means in a country like the US with around 170 million workers, that is about 43 million workers that are expected to be heavily impacted by AI in their field of work, which is an enormous amount. And, like so many here keep saying, new jobs will be created, it is going to be interesting just who is going to have the right skills to take those kinds of jobs.
And remember, that these are the jobs directly affected, not the jobs that are going to be impacted from changes to these fields. For instance, we saw how much service businesses struggled during lockdowns and how even now, they are closing down, because people are working from home, rather than having lunch at the local café. This knock-on effect is going to impact tens of millions of other jobs in service sectors too, so even if those jobs can't be automated, the demand for their services go down, so they will need less staff also.
Society is set up using the economy as a structure of distribution of resources, under the assumption that people are working, that there is a trade of some kind of personal resource that adds to the value of society, in exchange for value. However, with automation, the same trade can be generated without people using their personal resources, but, why would they get anything in return, if they aren't adding value?
With fewer jobs on offer and increasing profits for businesses, it is likely that the competition for employees is going to be very demanding, as it is going to be an employer market. The level of skills required in order to get into some of the few positions is going to be intense, and this is going to flood down into every field and every position. This means that the requirements for what is considered relatively basic work now, is going to increase, as is the value of demonstratable skills.
A decade is not a very long time, but we don't even have that, because these changes have been happening for decades already. We haven't noticed the changes as we have been able to pivot a little over that time, but now the replacement speed is increasing and it is going to start having impacts on our daily lives.
Who knows, perhaps we will be able to automate everything and produce all we need, with benevolent leaders who distribute effectively so no one has to work and, everyone is supported to be the best version of themselves.
What do you think the chances of that are?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]