AI is coming for these careers

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Artificial intelligence has hit society like a ton of bricks. Its rapid evolution has alarmed experts and prompted a number of grave warnings about the dangers posed by AI in the not-so-distant future. An open letter published by the Future of Life Institute called for a six month moratorium on the training of AI systems more advanced than GPT-4, lest we allow such systems to escape our control.

The letter poses four rhetorical questions, one of which concerns the issue of job loss due to AI: "Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?"

This is a pressing matter that has millions of people around the world wondering how long their jobs, which seemed so secure just a few months ago, can survive in the era of AI. Automation is a serious concern for many working people-both skilled and unskilled. How long, for instance, before couriers Melbourne begin using fully autonomous vehicles for delivery? How long before robots are writing Hollywood movie scripts? (Yes, that's a serious question.)

Automating jobs is not a new phenomenon. The industrial revolution rendered many age-old professions obsolete, among other regrettable effects. But it also created loads of jobs, developed cities and stimulated the economy. The ability of AI to create jobs for working people is non-existent. It might make elements of our society more efficient (Courier Melbourne vehicles that are both electric and autonomous are beneficial in many ways, no doubt) but its impact on the workforce at large is sure to be detrimental.

It's impossible to predict with certainty which jobs will succumb to AI and how quickly. But we can make educated guesses based on the tasks that systems like ChatGPT are already proficient at performing. In view of that, here is a list of eight careers that are already under threat from AI.

Customer service has been undergoing automation-not to mention off-shoring-for some time. When you chat online with a "representative" from your bank, for instance, chances are you're chatting with a robot. And you'd be hard-pressed to ring up a large business' customer service line and not be greeted by an automated voice on the other end.

In the past these automated agents were awful at addressing whatever issue you might have, and it was necessary to find some way to get through to a real person. With AI, the bots are much better at communicating and resolving issues. Eventually this may obviate the need for human customer service reps entirely.

Until this year, studying accounting in university was a good, practical choice. After all, every business needs a competent accountant. The issue is that, eventually, no human being will be able to match AI's efficiency in this field. And of course bots don't require salaries. That means more money for corporations, and less jobs for people with expertise in accounting. A raw deal, to say the least.

Such as myself. Yes, I'm on the chopping block with everyone else. The freelance writing market has undergone a tectonic shift in a matter of a few months. Countless firms have ceased to hire human content writers in favor of chatbots which can churn out content in no time at all-and at no cost. Some writers are trying to reinvent themselves as "prompt engineers," but that hardly seems like a long term solution.

Already, examples abound of AI's ability to rapidly produce visual designs that would take a human being much longer to achieve. Many people appear to be enthralled by this, but for graphic designers it's a source of consternation. As with copywriting, this skilled profession is in danger of evaporating.

Paralegals and legal assistants, whose jobs involve processing information and interpreting it through briefs and reports, are vulnerable to being displaced by AI. As with most of the others, legal professions will not disappear completely. Some human element is still going to be necessary; it's just that that element will be much, much smaller, resulting in massive job loss.

Software engineering and other tech savvy jobs like coding and developing are at risk of being severely affected by AI. It's the same story: code that might take a skilled human days or weeks to generate can be done in seconds by AI. And while experts contend that human engineers and developers will always be needed, a huge percentage of those jobs are going to be eliminated.

Media revolves around the production and presentation of written and visual material, both of which can be generated with greater efficiency by AI. People working in advertising, marketing and other forms of content creation may soon be considered superfluous. AI will also invade the realm of news media, although it's difficult to imagine how a computer could possibly function as an effective foreign correspondent reporting from a conflict zone.

As if factory workers didn't have it bad enough already. First they saw their jobs shipped overseas to developing countries where workers are paid absurdly low amounts of money. Now the few manufacturing jobs that remain are in danger of being eliminated by automation. What was once a reliable career path with job security, competitive wages, benefits, and a pension has become a dead end.

That is not an exhaustive list. In the coming years, the number of careers threatened by AI will only get bigger. Goldman Sachs estimates 300 million full time jobs could be eliminated globally. This raises a lot of very important questions, among them: how will these hundreds of millions of people react when their livelihoods are snatched away by computers?