Higher earners such as software engineers and data scientists are more exposed to the impact of artificial intelligence than lower paid workers, according to the latest research on the technology and the labour market.
Almost a fifth of employees would see at least half their tasks potentially affected by advances in machine learning, according to an analysis of more than 900 occupations published in Science on Thursday.
The paper highlights the uncertainty over AI’s impact on the labour market. The IMF expressed “profound concerns” this week that generative AI could stoke inequality and disrupt work, including in highly skilled industries. “Exposure [to AI] can be good for workers, or it can be bad for workers,” said Daniel Rock, a co-author of the paper and assistant professor of operations, information and decisions at the University of Pennsylvania.
“At this stage, it’s very difficult for us to say what the long-term effects on labour demand will be,” he added.
“But the exposure measure does tell you where to look for where things might change.” Rock and his fellow authors from ChatGPT maker OpenAI and the Centre for the Governance of AI, a UK non-profit organisation, examined 923 occupations from a database of work and worker characteristics.
They used humans and a trained GPT-4 large language model to analyse if the fast-evolving technology could cut the time a person would take to complete a task by at least half, with no reduction in quality. They concluded that 18.5 per cent of workers were in jobs that had 50 per cent or more of their tasks exposed in this way, skewing towards higher paid occupations. Jobs most affected included blockchain engineers, clinical data managers, public relations specialists and financial quantitative analysts. Occupations with no exposed tasks included motorcycle mechanics, pile driver operators and stonemasons.
