How AI Will Impact The Future Of Work
Artificial intelligence, or AI as otherwise known, has become one of the notable topics in computer science and the world. As technology advances, AI is continuously evolving to benefit many different industries. This brings us to ponder how AI will impact the future of work and even life generally. But before we look into that, what really is artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is based on the tenet that human intelligence can be refined such that a machine can mimic it and execute tasks. AI is associated with the creation and programming of machines to exhibit human traits and actions.
The European institution describes AI as “a set of sciences, theories, and techniques that aims to imitate the cognitive abilities of a human being.” The objective goal of AI is to exhibit the cognitive functions of the human mind, such as learning, reasoning, planning and processing, and perception.
Artificial intelligence is relevant to any intellectual task and has been used and applied across industries globally, e.g., health industry, finance/commerce, security and surveillance, etc. High profile examples of AI include autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars like Tesla, drones), web search engines(Google search), online assistants (Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa), etc.
The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On The Future Of Work
While some experts believe the whole idea is an imminent threat to the workforce, others believe that it is worth exploring:
“It is difficult to think of a major industry that AI will not transform. This includes healthcare, education, transportation, retail communications and agriculture. These are surprisingly clear paths for AI to make a difference in all of these industries.” — Andrew Ng.
“ We are going to see tremendous occupational shifts. Some jobs will climb while others will decline. How do we enable and support workers as they transition from occupation to occupation? We don’t do that very well. I worry about the skill shifts….” — James Mayinka.
According to Forbes, 90% of leading businesses are involved in AI technologies. Medically, AI has shown to be more effective than physicians in specific diagnostic contexts. AI is impacting the world of transportation with the advent of autonomous vehicles and navigation. AI and machine learning will be critical tools in identifying and predicting threats in cybersecurity. It will also be a crucial asset for security in the world of finance, given that it can process large amounts of data to prevent fraud. According to the news, all these are usually human labour, and if AI comes into place, people will lose their jobs.
Nevertheless, research titled “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work,” published by the MIT Task Force, indicated that “AI will enable new industries to emerge, creating new jobs…” It was also posited that there would be a need for governments and other parts of society to assist this transition because “the most promising uses of AI will not involve computers replacing people, but rather, people and computers working together — as ‘superminds’ — to do both cognitive and physical tasks that could not be done before.”
Interestingly, AI is already influencing the world, and I agree with Oren Etzioni, who said, “AI is neither good nor evil. It’s a tool. It’s a technology for us to use.” The choice about how it gets deployed is ours.
References:
Ramos, J. (2021) Brief History of Artificial Intelligence: Tomorrow city.
Stahl, A. (2021) How AI will impact the Future of Work and Life: Forbes.
Thomas, M., Daniela, R., and Robert, L. (2020) Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work: MIT Work of the Future.
