AI's Impact on Jobs and the Labor Market
Last week, comments from “What Jobs are Affected by AI?” by Mark Muro, Jacob Whiton and Robert Maxim (Brookings Institute – Nov. 20, 2019) included:
“There are ways that AI might create entirely new work for humans.
"Some such new work is easy to predict: Today’s legions of machine learning engineers and research scientists—not to mention AI solutions architects, sales engineers, and consultants—will undoubtedly proliferate. This growth, meanwhile, may be exceeded by the growth of a very different and less fortunate group of workers—those who manually label data to train AI algorithms.
"Then, there is the new work that is indirectly created. Just as the automobile created jobs not only in auto manufacturing plants but also in pumping stations, roadside restaurants, and the new suburban America that emerged, it seems likely that AI will have similarly far-reaching—if difficult to predict—indirect effects.
“For now, we can draw two conclusions: First, AI is a very different technology than earlier types of automation, and is going to most affect a very different part of the workforce. Second, because even less is known about AI than other types of automation, it appears much more ambiguous and confined in its impacts, at least for now."
Separately, comments from “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Labor Market” by Michael Webb (Stanford University - Nov. 6, 2019) included:
"Whereas low-skill occupations are most exposed to robots, and middle-skill occupations are most exposed to software, it is high-skill occupations that are most exposed to artificial intelligence. Moreover, artificial intelligence is much more likely to affect highly-educated and older workers than these previous technologies.
"Substantial uncertainty about the impacts of artificial intelligence remains … it is possible that AI will also complement some kinds of tasks, with different effects on labor demand. Moreover, the impacts on workers depend not just on labor demand … but also on labor supply.
“future patterns of human capital investment and occupational mobility will have important effects on equilibrium employment and wages. Artificial intelligence may also affect the labor market through more indirect channels … it may lead to the creation of new products, which could affect labor demand, and to more efficient delivery of education, which could affect labor supply.”
OUR TAKE
Artificial intelligence/machine learning technologies are still at an early stage of development. Industry players distinguish between narrow AI – which perform single tasks, general AI – which seeks to operate like human intelligence and super AI – which exceeds human performance in many ways. Today’s AI solutions have narrow AI capabilities. General and super AI will require new approaches to hardware design and software development.
Among the varied visions of AI, it is important to note, as the authors above have done, that predicting AI's long term impact is a challenging process.
For centuries, technologies have disrupted and enhanced the economic, social, educational and political dynamics of societies . As AI evolves in an environment of accelerating change; issues related to personal privacy, data security and labor skills will need to be addressed.