Will the Development of AI Lead to More Unemployed People?
Emergence of the powerful Artificial Intelligence, capable of self-teaching, began dramatically affecting the world’s job market by the 2020s. Deep learning models can solve various tasks:
- Analyze and classify data.
- Pilot autonomous vehicles.
- Create and translate content.
- Write code, design digital assets.
- Compose music, do voice acting, and so on.
It is estimated that by 2030, 800 million jobs might be replaced by AI, while 120 million specialists will need retraining. At the same time, the World Economic Forum’s report states that upcoming trends, including AI-related ones, will create 170 million entirely new jobs.
The History of Unemployment Predictions from Advances in Technology and AI
Unacceptance of new technology has been observed for more than 500 years. Filippo de Strata, the 15th century scribe, vigorously protested against book printing as it would make his profession obsolete. 400 years later the Luddite movement began in Britain leading the struggle of the stock nitters against the use of weaving machines.
Similar sentiments could be observed in the 1970s when automated solutions — computerized typesetting or assembly line robots — sparked the fear of job loss among the trade unions.
However, in the long run introduction of the automatic machinery caused the need for new specialists, as well as contributed to the emergence of the worker unions, whose existence led to adoption of the labor laws and worker rights protection.
Transformation of Global Economy, Impact of AI on Jobs Area
Research by the International Labor Organization (ILO) shows an interesting trend, which dictates that jobs with repetitive tasks are less likely to be replaced with AI as it was believed before. Instead, enhanced cognitives abilities of such GenAI models as GPT can replace workers who perform non-repetitive, knowledge-related tasks.
At the same time, the report states that the job market will be reshaped and transformed, rather than devastated by the AI’s advent. First, AI is most likely to be deployed in high-income countries, while in poorer countries it's still cheaper to rely on human labor. Second, AI solutions will, perhaps, still need human supervision and maintenance.
Joblessness in the AI Era
Opinions differ on the topic.
- The Arguments in Favour of Unemployment (“Replacement Effect”)
A number of researchers predict that AI automation will lead to massive job loss. One of the first prognoses was made by the Soviet-American economist W.Leontief who wrote in 1983 that “More and more workers will be replaced by machines”. Another paper dated back to 2014 reports that 48% of technological specialists believe that standard work assignments can be handled by robots. Oxford's research claims that unemployment will also grow in high-tech along with other industries.
- The Arguments against Unemployment (“Displacement Effect”)
Margaret Boden in her book Artificial intelligence: Cannibal or missionary? That AI eventually will bring more jobs that never existed before. According to McKinsey Global Institute Research, data scientists will be in extreme demand in the foreseeable future and a paper by Wolfgang Dauth reveals that adoption of robotics on the German job market didn’t reduce the total employment in the country.
- The Arguments for AI's Lack of Impact on the Labour Market
Finally, there is a neutral opinion that discards a dramatic shift possibility caused by artificial intelligence. A research, conducted with the help of regression analysis methods, shows that human labor and AI usage complement each other, showing a negligible amount of evidence of AI impacting the economy and job markets in any way.
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