AN ARTIFICIAL intelligence “job-pocalypse” could be on the horizon as nearly one billion jobs could be replaced by machines, experts have warned.
Tech chiefs have sounded the alarm as the world rapidly embraces the developing field which is already allowing some jobs to be done entirely by a machine.
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Some estimates have put the figure of job losses as close to one billion – with up to 800million roles facing the axe to automationm, according to a previous assessment by the Mckinsey Global Institute.
Professor Nigel Crook, founder of the Ethical AI Institute at Oxford Brookes University, said this figure sounds worryingly realistic – and warned there is a coming “deep impact” on the job market.
Professor Neil McArthur, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, added the world is not prepared for the changes to come.
And both agreed that AI and robots will be better than humans at their jobs – further hammering home the need for a massive societal readjustment because of the tech.
“I think it’s something we should be worried about, I really do,” Professor Crook told The Sun.
“These technologies are stepping into areas that normally would require human-to-human contact.
“You have to worry about what the long-term implications of that might be if people don’t engage with each other on a social basis as well as a work basis”.
The esteemed professor – and author of Rise Of The Moral Machine – said the world will be surprised by what jobs first face the axe, with lawyers and some doctors potentially being replaced by AI.
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“AI algorithms are already being developed to do the work of a lawyer, to review contracts for example,” he told The Sun Online.
And although 800million lost jobs might sound like an unthinkably large number, Crook suggested that this figure may be more realistic than we know.
“800million jobs lost sounds a lot – but it could be at that scale,” he said.
“If you add it to what has already gone before I can see we could be heading in that direction, I can believe it.
“The applications of the technology are just beginning to roll out and I think the implications are huge.”
And he warned that the jobs done by humans could be done cheaper and better by AI.
“So it could be that people who were once secure in their jobs will find that AI has the capacity to do it much cheaper, possibly more accurately, possibly more effectively”.
And Professor McArthur agreed, saying: “There’s going to be fewer of lots of us.”
He followed the warning by stressing how we are not mentally prepared for what’s to come, as no one could have anticipated how quickly AI was going to come for the “brain workers”.
“There’s a whole class of people who have been totally taken off guard by the impacts it going to have on their work – and I think we’re still figuring that out”.
McArthur then went on to explain that for every job that people do, there are things about it that AI can either do for them or help them do.
But he believes that this can be used as an advantage and as a tool that will actually make workers more productive.
“Everyone should take a look at their own job and ask themselves ‘are there things that AI can do to help me?'”
According to the World Economic Forum, AI could displace 85 million jobs globally by 2025.
But to reach this surreal level of job loss, Crook explained that it will happen in three stages – and we’re already at the beginning of stage three.
The first wave saw industrial settings with repetitive jobs targeted by AI, such as factory workers.
“Robotics have made a huge impact on employment in that sector,” said Crook.
The second wave hit admin roles, with HR workers being traded in for digital “CV sifters” as businesses adopt algorithm and machine learning tools that now have the power to make decisions and recommendations.
But now Crook claims that we are in the early stages of wave three, with generative AI having the ability to create new content and material in the form of texts, stories, programme code, images, and sound.
“I think there is definitely a reason to be concerned about this third wave,” he said.
“We will come up with new ways of working, we’ll have to”.
Among the statistics of how many millions of jobs are speculated to vanish over the next three decades, the professor claimed that “the nine-to-five probably has an end in sight”.
But this destruction can be avoided through education, said Crook.
“Businesses need to help their employees understand how the technology works and what the impact could be on them – that to me is key”.
He added: “Companies need to think about the consequences on their workforce of deploying this kind of technology… inevitably we will see a reduction in the size of the workforce”.
AI expert Dmitry Tokar, CEO and co-founder of tech firm Zadarma, however, was less concerned – but predicted the need for more regulation.
“I don’t recommend overestimating the impact. Changes can be slower due to ordinary inertia,” he said.
“One opportunity lost, another found. The job market is changing all the time and usually, new jobs compensate for old ones. The fastest changes were in 2020, and we are ok.”
He added: “AI helps to grow the value of human labor. Not everybody wants to use AI to contact AI and a lot of people will decide to pay more for the human job.
“It can become a luxury. This is like the diamond, everybody can buy artificial for 50 euros but mostly prefer natural for the thousands.”
He added: “In the future could be regulation of usage AI in politics, in the army, and limitations of interconnections of different AI models.”
It comes after Professor Crook spoke to The Sun in April about how AI and ChatGPT are already at human level and people are on track to losing touch with reality.
