The Jobs That Will Be Disrupted By AI
A study by OpenAI, OpenResearch and University of Pennsylvania
Many people have asked what jobs are going to be disrupted by AI. The answer is that we have been spectacularly bad at predicting what will and won’t be disrupted by AI and automation. Keeping that in mind, a paper was just published that looked at the jobs that may be disrupted by AI, in particular in this case, by LLMs. It’s interesting to note the paper uses the term “exposed” instead of at-risk. The paper combines both disruption and enhancement under the category of being exposed to AI. Let’s take a look at some of the findings.
Rapid advancements.
First of all, the space is moving fast. This chart gives you a sense of how quickly improvements have been made and the comparison between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4.
As you can see with the blue, subjects like AP Psychology, AP Art History and AP Environmental Science were already mastered by GPT-3.5. The biggest improvement was GPT-4’s performance on the Bar Exam against GPT-3.5, which previously scored in the bottom decile and GPT-4 now scores in the top 90th percentile. Lawyers watch out.
The impact will be widespread.
The researchers looked at 1,016 occurpations from the O*NET 27.2 database concluded that 80% of workers are part of an occupation where at least one task is exposed to GPTs. As usual with the 80/20 rule, the impact will be more concentrated on a few occupations as 19% of the workforce are part of occupations with over half of the tasks are exposed to GPTs.
It’s not the jobs we expected.
Historically, we have speculated that jobs that are repetitive and routine will be subject to automation. The paper explains in the highlighted portion below that this is referred to as “routine biased technological change.”
However, the coming disruption will be a departure from this phenomenon. Instead, the researchers concluded that higher wage jobs were more susceptible to disruption by GPTs than lower wage jobs. Moreover “individuals holding Bachelor’s, Master’s, and professional degrees are more exposed to GPTs and GPT-powered software than those without formal educational credentials.”
Interestingly, the researchers observed that the jobs with the least exposure require the longest training and jobs with no on-the-job training required are more exposed to GPT.
So what are the jobs?
Here is the table of the jobs with the most exposure to GPT. Keep in mind, that “exposure” does not necessarily imply being threatened, as GPT may help workers in the exposed occupations become more productive or efficient.
Which jobs will not be disrupted?
Here is the list of jobs that are least likely to have exposure to the current set of GPTs and foreseeable advancements:
Some demographic impacts.
Researchers also suggested that occupations held by women and Asian will be more likely to be disrupted by GPTs.
The most likely follow-up question.
The obvious follow up question is how should the next generation of workers prepare for the coming disruption. I often get asked by parents whether it’s worth teaching their kids how to code. If not, then where should they focus their efforts on preparing their children for the future economy?
What do you think? Please share your thoughts!
The link to the full study can be found here.