It's Your Business: Natural versus artificial — Will AI affect your current job?
We live in an age where natural is something extolled by advertisers, with descriptions like 100% natural or all natural or only natural ingredients. But in keeping with the increasing levels of cognitive dissonance caused or exacerbated by the pandemic, we are also living in an age where intelligence seems better if it is artificial. Along with the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) has come fear that AI will take jobs or joy that AI will make work better. Note that we are not conflating AI with automation, a different type of technology marvel that will likely benefit from the learning capabilities of AI.
So, who among us, working in the Bloomington area, is in a job that is more or less susceptible to AI? The Pew Research Center helps answer that with a recent study on the levels of “exposure” to AI based on occupation and skills. Their current conclusion (as of July 2023) is that 23% of workers are in jobs that have the least exposure to AI compared to 19% in jobs that are the most exposed. They also found that people with more education have greater exposure. Well, in Monroe County nearly 50% of the adult population 25+ has at minimum a bachelor’s degree. Yes, almost one of every two adults — so the likelihood you will see them on the street or in the grocery store is high, as is their exposure (that is Pew’s term, not mine) to AI. Will they all know it? Many will, but even today with Microsoft and Google powering more of their tools with AI, it’s difficult to know.
Bloomington also has a high proportion of high-to-medium exposure occupations, including professors, teaching assistants, lawyers, executives, architects, software engineers, scientists of many types, bankers and Realtors as well as government workers. Notably, jobs requiring analytical skills are the most susceptible to AI, as opposed to jobs with routine repetitive tasks that at one time were considered the most likely to be automated or roboticized.
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Consider the cross-section of occupations that current thinking says will have the most (web developers, programmers, accountants, budget analysts) to least (barbers, childcare workers, firefighters and police) exposure to artificial intelligence at work and with or as part of their jobs — or not. AI is seen as eventually replacing skills that define certain jobs, such as analyzing data or forecasting. Is your job high on the exposure list, and if so, do you care? Based on surveys by Pew of people with the most “AI exposed” jobs, their reactions were mostly positive, as in “I could really use the help!”
Time will tell if AI becomes the driver of “work smarter, not harder” for people or if certain occupations fade away as baby boomers retire from their jobs as actuaries, accountants or technical writers. We might accommodate both automation of jobs and AI skills and/or jobs replacements by attrition, long a favorite way of shrinking any businesses workforce. If you are intrigued by AI and its capacity for good or not-so-good, you may want to see what Indiana University’s new initiative Accelerating Imagination is up to as they work to deploy AI-based solutions. And check out the Pew Research Center’s study on “Which U.S. Workers are More Exposed to AI on Their Jobs?” to see if your job hits the list.
Carol Rogers is co-director and CIO of the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Will artificial intelligence affect your current job in Indiana?
