One of the organizations I belong to in Los Angeles provides very low-cost consulting (among other things) to non-profits in this area. They do so by recruiting and training mostly retired executives who are able to provide consulting or coaching at no cost.
They recently put together a seminar on how we can use AI in our work. This three-hour training included a brief description of what AI is all about, and how to prompt Chatbots to come out with useful information, such as questionnaires to be used or job descriptions for various positions in the organization. In other words, the type of stuff we would need to do for the assignments.
One question I asked to the staff involved in teaching was what would be the role of us human beings in such a consulting world? There were no clear answers. So, I decided to continue my quest.
Interestingly, the same evening, while going for my walk, I heard a very informative Podcast on the subject. This is called “Asking for a friend…which jobs are safe from AI” on Planet Money. Of the two people they used as subjects, one is deciding to study for law but wondering if the expense he goes through will be recovered once he gets his degree but find himself outcompeted by AI. The other is a designer who is wondering if she should take up jobs like welding or plumbing which are likely to survive the AI onslaught.
To answer these questions, the Podcast discussed work done by Daniel Rock, an AI researcher, who came out with what would be the Exposure to AI for some one thousand jobs. He did that by identifying tasks done in each job and then assigning an exposure index. If AI can do the task in half the time, it got score E1, if it cannot, the score would be E0, and for an in between situation, the task will get E2. This was done for some 20,000 tasks involved with the 1000 jobs.
At the bottom (very little chance of AI intrusion) are jobs such as wellhead thumper operator, metal casters, athletes, dancers and coaches. At the highest level are knowledge workers and public relations jobs. Dan cautions that even at the highest levels, AI will not replace the jobs but will change them drastically. AI could become a general-purpose technology, like electricity and it will make vast changes in the economy. His list is indicative but not definitive in terms of jobs that will disappear.
However, for the jobs that are highly exposed, it will be good and if you could productively use AI. In the end, if demand is elastic, such increase in productivity would be great. If it is inelastic, there will be job losses.
Roberto Rigobon at MIT has approached the problem from a different angle: He asks: “What are Humans good for?” He then looked at each task in a job and scored them along for the following five parameters that require a human being.
Empathy (E), Presence (P), Opinion (O), Creativity (C), and Hope (H). Higher the EPOCH score is, more likely it is that the humans are needed.
At the top of the list are jobs like Emergency Management Director, IT Project Manager, and such. Even Construction Workers scored high on Empathy. The clerical jobs, insurance appraisers, tax preparers, and such scored less.
In the end, the question is whether AI will automate or augment a job. If a job requires tasks that are connected, AI will augment the job even if some tasks are exposed as AI replacement. For example, AI can prepare the slides but a human is needed to deliver a lecture. There. AI augments but does not replace a human being.
So, for the two people who were asking questions about AI, the response for the person who is deciding to go to the law school: Do join the school and become a lawyer. Get good at delivering a judgement and not performing clerical tasks. Learn how to think and imagine. Then you won’t be replaced.
To the designer thinking about learning how to be a plumber: What if everyone decides to do that? There will be too many plumbers and the wages will drop.
In the end, there is not list of jobs that are immune to AI encroachment. We are in for a weird ride, according to this Podcast.
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