AI is the most influential technology since the creation of the Watt steam engine that sparked the Industrial Revolution, but most jobs in the future will remain safe providing businesses and policymakers prioritize augmentation over automation.
This echoes Dr. Erik Brynjolfsson, the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Director, Digital Economy Lab, Stanford University, who spoke at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils (AMGFC24) in a panel titled “Keeping AI on Track”.
Dr. Brynjolfsson described AI as a general-purpose technology (GPT) that can “drive the arch of improvement”. Addressing fears that AI will replace vast numbers of jobs, the professor explained how businesses and governments should be looking at how advanced technologies can replace tasks, rather than jobs.
“A job is a bundle of different tasks. AI can help with some of them,” he said, citing the example of radiologists in hospitals. Dr. Brynjolfsson noted that the demand for radiologists tripled between 2016-2022 despite early fears that AI’s superior image recognition would negate the need for radiologists in healthcare systems. “There are about 27 distinct tasks that radiologists do. One of them is interpreting images. But they do other things, for instance, sometimes they have to administer sedation. I want a human to be involved in that. AI helps with some tasks, but with others, you need a human involved.”
Dr. Brynjolfsson presented data showing that approximately 80% of the US workforce will have at least 10% of their tasks affected by AI. And 19% of workers may see at least 50% of their tasks being impacted by AI, especially in higher-paid roles such as medical doctors.
I like the example that @ilyasut uses to explain the potential of next word prediction.
One could also imagine what would be needed to predict the next word in a biology, chemistry, or physics textbook, or a description of a complicated business or geopolitical negotiation. https://t.co/taHORyXyUj
— Erik Brynjolfsson (@erikbryn) October 12, 2024
He stressed that “too many” CEOs and policymakers focus on how AI should automate jobs, saying “The bigger opportunity is to augment; use AI to increase what people can do”. Anticipating a period of “tremendous business transformation” over the next decade driven by AI, Dr. Brynjolfsson said: “Policymakers need to be watching this and preparing for this massive transformation.”
