IBM replacing 7800 jobs with AI
(notthebee.com)
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I don't want to play down the impact of AI but we have been here before. Remember when computers were going to take over and replace all the workers?
Then, computer manufacturers, software developers, systems analysts and IT consultancy firms started to employ hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people.
My guess is that things will certainly change but it won't be all bad.
Technology advances have always resulted in fewer people working. Used to be >90% of people were farmers, now only ~60% of people work, with less than 3% of the population being farmers.
But they never result in nobody working - new fields open up, and some old ones end up becoming more valuable.
These language models will do the same for brain jobs - I’d expect most of those to drop to a fraction of what they once were, we will still need call center employees, paralegals, software developers, maybe doctors etc, but not as many as now when this is all said and done. Who knows what that percentage will be?
On the plus side, new fields will open up, and hybrid jobs that are difficult to replace (electricians, nurses etc) will become more valuable.
Similarly, if you can make a business that properly takes advantage of this technology, you will make a killing - there’s a lot of opportunity here, more than most of us have had available in our lifetimes.
I think that all those specific professions you mentioned will lose qute a few people to AI. Already when you use a Chat system you will most likely start by communicating with a machine rather than a person.
One new job will be the development of AI systems! OK, they will be able to develop themselves but, say, in the field of finance, people will not be happy with an ordinary AI system they will demand the absolute best system and I suspect that AI systems developed by AI will come out a bit "samey". It will take some humans in there to mix it up a bit.
People who write books, magazine articles, perhaps even news articles might struggle. AI could just be given access to the databases and it could make up its own stories. Something will need to specify the spin, though!
I am trying to think about IT jobs. Today we spend more time gathering requirements, writing assorted specifications then finding test data, testing and writing up those tests than we do actually coding anything. AI could do all that in one go but I think that with just one "brain" involved there will be gaps because if the AI has a blind spot it will propagate through every level.
As someone once said, prophesies are difficult - particularly about the future!