While millions of people live under the threat of losing relevance under the lengthening shadow of AI and other robots, pundits across the media continue to say that new jobs will arise to replace the lost ones. So what are they?
Sadly, it is too early to know. Every upheaval in technology has led to changes in world economies and, of course, the creation of new unimagined jobs from the first industrial revolution until now.
The problem for those of us in the line of fire is that no solutions are being put forth, no new job are being discussed, and the prospects for the AI-Replaceable seem bleak at worse, unclear at best.
Who is at risk? Well… Customer service, human resources, data entry, drivers, graphic designers, lawyers, market research analysts, retail, writers, coding, couriers, factory workers, manufacturing, teachers, chief executives, physicians, paralegals, proofreading, receptionists, soldiers, telemarketers, and traders. Just for starters.
Many jobs have already been subsumed. Customer service has given up thousands of jobs to chatbots already. At least one bank in the Philippines, whence I write this, seems to have given up using humans altogether. I have been fighting with AI generated chatbots for days and cannot get to a human voice. I have not given up, Maya, but I need a rest from your patented cheery unhelpfulness.
Many writing jobs are being given over to ChatGpT and other similar creatures. An article in last June’s Washington Post talked about a staff writer who now walks dogs.
“Experts say that even advanced AI doesn’t match the writing skills of a human: It lacks personal voice and style, and it often churns out wrong, nonsensical, or biased answers. But for many companies, the cost-cutting is worth a drop in quality.”[1]
This is the real threat of AI: the substitution of costly human expertise and quality with ok-good-enough and cheap algorithms.
And sadder still is that most people are ok with that.
What to Do?
At this stage, rather than looking back in tears, what action can we really take to combat this? I am a writer, a teacher, a coach-consultant, and an editor. If baseball had four strikes, I would be way out already.
The first thing to do, I would think, would be to examine the real threat. Is every part of your job threatened by AI? Often the creativity and problem-solving aspects of a job are better served by human intuition than by Big Data, even if the processes are similar.
When we get ideas, our brains assemble associations, thoughts, and impressions and make extrapolations which come to us in the form of new ideas. Big Data does the same: machines sift through far more data than a human brain could contain and pulls out patterns and “draws conclusions” based on likelihoods.
This is where the human brain surpasses the computer. Our brains allow us to make mistakes. We see facts and draw boneheaded wrong conclusions and act on them. This does not seem admirable on its face, but it is this capacity to miss the mark that leads humans to discover new things – like Velcro and Teflon and Facebook. Big Data, no matter how sophisticated, can only draw logical conclusions and present consequential outcomes.
If I am a teacher, ChatGpT could create my lessons for me and even lecture the students from a screen or telepresence device. But the what the robot cannot do is allow the data to open new topics of discussion, incorporate the students’ views, combine it with the teacher’s, and mix in the research to come out on the other side of somewhere else.
As a teacher, I am happier to inspire the desire to learn, the curiosity, and the tool to do so than I am to have my students learn facts and dates. Some yes, but not to the exclusion of creative thought. I believe that a human can still accomplish this better than a microchip.
If you are facing this situation, ask yourself how it will affect you exactly. In many cases, AI can be a tool more than a replacement. Our job, in the replaceable sections, is to show them how and why.
Talking it out with an experienced and objective listener is a good place to start. Get in touch with me by email or through the contact page and let’s find the way out of the woods together.
[1] “ChatGPT took their jobs. Now they walk dogs and fix air conditioners,” Washington Post, June 2, 2023
