The advent of artificial intelligence has thrown the labor market into turmoil. The emergence of this technology and the revolution it caused in different areas also seems to affect different jobs.
The potential automation of some tasks currently performed by humans is an increasingly real threat, even more so with the steady advance of artificial intelligence. There are numerous areas that are affected by this threat, as both professional and lower level positions are likely to be replaced by machines.
Although this is a progressive process and will not be done from one moment to the next, there are already fears of possible mass layoffs. It seems that artificial intelligence will lead to a reconfiguration of the entire labor market, or at least a large part of it.
IBM and its announcement: thousands of jobs replaced by artificial intelligence
IBM seems to have kicked off the process of replacing people with artificial intelligence in some positions. Arvind Krishna, IBM’s chief executive, said that hiring new staff for areas such as human resources and back office has been put on hold. This will happen because these are areas whose positions may be replaced by artificial intelligence very soon.
According to Krishna, this is a plan that will take at least 5 years and the goal is to replace non-customer-facing positions. One of the areas that would suffer the most layoffs is human resources, as approximately 30% of positions would be automated. The suspension of hiring means that positions that become vacant due to retirements or voluntary departures will not be replaced. These moves will result in the layoff of at least 7,800 employees, including vacant positions.
Krishna also stated that routine tasks are the ones that can be automated, while there are more specific ones that may take longer to replace. For example, employment verification or employee transfers are tasks that could be automated, while others such as employee evaluations are more difficult to replace, at least over the next ten years.
Finance, customer service and media: areas at risk from the advance of artificial intelligence
According to studies conducted by OpenAI, ChatGPT’s company, 50% of the tasks performed in 19% of jobs can be automated. The researchers also stated that this is a figure that will be increasing in the near future.
According to this report, the jobs most exposed to the impact of AI are:
- Mathematicians
- Managers, accountants, auditors and financial analysts
- Public Relations
- Media analysts
- Administrative assistants
- User interface and internet design
- Translators
- Legal assistants
- Customer Service Agents
Many customer service-related positions already use artificial intelligence bots, so this could be the area that is affected in the short term.
Other more professional positions are also at risk of being automated but perhaps it will take longer. Some of them are programmers, graphic designers, architects, engineers or biologists.
There is no doubt that the advent of artificial intelligence will completely reshape the employment landscape. We will have to wait to see which of these forecasts come true and how humans adapt to these new realities.
