The last few years have seen a deluge of papers on the potential impact of artificial intelligence and other autonomous technologies on work as we know it. As the actual impact of AI to date has been relatively modest, many of these papers have been speculative at best. Does the latest such report, from the British Academy and Royal Society, do any better?
The paper pours scorn on many of the doomsday predictions made around the impact of AI on work, suggesting that many of them give an inherently misleading impression. It does however concede that the introduction of AI into the workplace is likely to cause disruption, whether in terms of jobs being lost, tasks within jobs changing, or indeed new jobs being created.
The authors examined over 160 papers from a wide range of sources, including economists, data scientists and historians to try and fall upon some kind of consensus. This analysis reveals that change is inevitable, but technology will not be the sole cause of this change, with political, economic and cultural factors also playing a major role.
Accurate projections
If there is one thing that the various projections into the potential impact of AI on jobs have in common, it’s that there is no real agreement, with most projections varying wildly from the absurd to the ridiculous. The unreliability of these projections is compounded by the fundamental lack of evidence to support them from our early explorations with AI to date.
The authors propose five core areas that they believe policy makers should focus upon:
- Focus on skills – they are broadly supportive of the potential for AI to drive significant improvements in both productivity and life for citizens as a whole, but they urge a renewed focus on training and development to help people adapt to any changes to their work as a result of AI-driven technology.
- New ways of working – the last few years have seen new ways of working, such as the gig economy, which presents a number of issues, especially around the provision of social services that are largely based around traditional employment.
- Modern ways of learning – with technologically-driven change coming at a rapid pace, it’s likely that people will have to learn more often than is currently the case. This will mandate new ways of learning that are cheaper and more accessible than traditional degree programs.
- Ensure the benefits of growth are shared – a common concern across the developed world in recent years is that new technologies have concentrated economic gains in the hands of a small number of technology companies. Average wage growth has slipped behind economic growth figures, and there is growing consensus across the political spectrum that this situation cannot persist.
“Advances in AI will have a disruptive effect on work, with some jobs being lost, others being created, and others changing altogether. We want to bring evidence back into the debate and stimulate ideas on how we can ensure we all benefit from an AI-enabled future,” the Royal Society say.
“There is much we can do now to ensure the advantages of AI are shared equally among the population, and that technology is used to boost productivity and growth. Adopting a broad post-16 curriculum which incorporates maths, science, humanities and social sciences, would go a long way in building resilience to future change,” they continue.
Given the breadth of the analysis, the recommendations are not really that inspiring, and don’t add a great deal to the debate. If we’re in a situation whereby even the simplest recommendations need repeating verbatim before change occurs however, then the report offers that at least.
