AI, Robotics, and Jobs – Implications To The Future Labor Market
In a generation defined by new and sophisticated artificial intelligence tools, the looming question over everyone’s head seems to be, “What will happen to our jobs?”. With OpenAI’s text and language model ChatGPT, several have pointed out that human thought, work, and even intelligence are under threat by AI. In the past few months, ChatGPT has successfully been able to pass graduate-level medical, business, and law exams that several ordinary humans usually struggle immensely with. Even one of OpenAI’s founders, Elon Musk, teamed up with several other influential voices to plead to the government to pause several AI projects until regulations and plans can be set to ensure the human species can combat such a power. However, one of the largest inevitable threats continues to lie in the labor market.
When it comes to both AI and robotics, economists have hypothesized three separate perspectives/outcomes regarding the relationship between AI and jobs. The first, the optimistic perspective, claims that these automation technologies will solely boost employment rates in noncompetitive spheres through industry-wide optimization. The doomsayer perspective claims the opposite, stating that automation coupled with AI will completely take over several industries leading to mass unemployment. In Western Europe, several studies have cited that AI, Robotics, and technologies dealing with automation have directly impacted roughly 45 to 60% of employment.
As AI and robotics are still in a relatively young stage, this is difficult to determine, which is why several believe in the unifying perspective, which has followed trends throughout history. In this last hypothesis, it is theorized that AI will lead to a new demand for noncompetitive skills, inducing to a migratory period leading to a short time of unemployment quickly followed by a new and robust labor market. Although this has historically been true throughout the agricultural and all industrial revolutions, it is nearly impossible to say where the human labor trajectory will be headed in the next 50 years.
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I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.
