AI – threat or betterment for jobs performed by humans?

To answer the mind-bogging question whether AI is a threat or betterment for jobs performed by humans, I’ll start with quoting Stephen Hawking

“Success in creating effective AI, could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don’t know. So we cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI, or ignored by it and side-lined, or conceivably destroyed by it, unless we learn how to prepare for, and avoid, the potential risks, AI could be the worst event in the history of our civilization.”  That sounds kind of scary, doesn’t it?

  But followed with:

“I am an optimist and I believe that we can create AI for the good of the world. That it can work in harmony with us. We simply need to be aware of the dangers, identify them, employ the best possible practice and management, and prepare for its consequences well in advance,” doesn’t really sound that bad.

I’m sure that each and every one of us has seen at least one movie featuring AI. A Sci-Fi movie, but terrifyingly realistic, in which AI powered (most likely human-looking) robots destroy our civilization or take over humanity… later on they stop needing people to service them, thanks to machine learning they master how to fix and enhance themselves…And that’s when we start thinking and getting concerned if this could really happen, or on a smaller scale, in our workspace, for instance.

In the times that we live in, people interact with machines on everyday basis. Moreover I think we fully depend on them already..

Let’s take a look at a very basic task. Going to work. By public transport – your ticket will be scanned by a computer, so you know if it’s valid. You need to check which bus you should hop on – the easiest and fastest way to do it requires use of another machine – phone for instance. What if you go by car? The on-board computer can display pretty much any info about the vehicle. Tire pressure, gas use, it’ll show you the route and give you directions.  Or another example – unlocking your phone with the use of FR (you can read about that in our previous post.

Let’s dive into the main topic, that I wanted to talk about. Is AI a threat to your employment?

It’s true that AI powered computers can complete some difficult tasks, but still they aren’t as comprehensive as humans. Human brain’s ingenuity and dexterity is something that AI is yet to accomplish. AI powered machines in journalism for example, can create a pretty good basic news story. Most of the text is faultless, only about 20% needs correcting – due to grammatical mistakes, for now fixed by humans, at least for now.

It’s no doubt that machine’s abilities will improve within time, what might potentially result in replacement of some human workers, but people’s faculty and knowledge necessary in the future. Across all industries, some of the fastest growing job opportunities like software developers, social media specialists and data analysts are expanding thanks to the use of AI. Furthermore jobs like innovation and customer service, sales and marketing which base on human skills are also expected to increase in demand.

So, AI – threat or betterment for jobs performed by humans?

Taking this under consideration I think that we shouldn’t be so scared about human displacement caused by the increasing use of AI. It’s true that AI powered machines might replace people in some areas, but they’re also expected to create new jobs, actually more than might demolish.

Read more about how AI is expected to affect job deployment and employment here.