As artificial intelligence continues its relentless march into every corner of our lives, one question looms: What will happen to our jobs? In a recent talk at Dartmouth College, Mira Murati, CTO of OpenAI, offered a nuanced and sometimes unsettling glimpse into this AI-driven future.
Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, the public debate about AI’s role in the workplace has intensified, sparking concerns about job losses in industries such as journalism and web design. A recent study showed that 61% of large US firms plan to use AI within the next year to automate tasks like paying suppliers and financial reporting, aiming to cut costs and boost productivity.
However, this has also raised significant concerns about job losses and the need for strong risk management. Despite these fears, Murati remains optimistic, emphasizing AI’s potential as a collaborative tool that enhances rather than replaces human creativity.
The impact of AI on jobs
Murati’s comments suggest that the pace of AI development is accelerating rapidly. She stated that within “a year and a half let’s say” we could be looking at “PhD-level intelligence for specific tasks.” This timeline is startlingly short, implying that entire professions could be disrupted far sooner than many anticipate.
Despite her position at the forefront of AI development, Murati admitted, “The truth is that we don’t really understand the impact that AI is going to have on jobs yet.” This uncertainty from one of the field’s leaders is interesting. How can the rest of us prepare if those creating these technologies can’t predict their impact?
Murati said she expects widespread change: “I certainly anticipate that a lot of jobs will change, some jobs will be lost, some jobs will be gained.” But the devil is in the details. Which jobs? How many? And what happens to those left behind?
One area Murati identified as vulnerable was repetitive work. “You can imagine a lot of jobs that are repetitive, that are just strictly repetitive and people are not advancing further, those would be replaced,” she noted. This could encompass a vast swath of current employment, from data entry and basic coding to certain manufacturing roles and even some creative tasks that follow set patterns, including writing.
But this raises a critical question: What happens to the millions of workers in these roles? Not everyone can or wants to be a high-level knowledge worker or creative. Our society and economy are built on various job types and skill levels. Disrupting this balance could have far-reaching societal implications.
Economic transformation
Murati sees significant economic potential in AI: “The economy will transform and there is going to be a lot of value created by these tools.” This optimistic view suggests new industries, increased productivity, and potentially vast wealth creation.
However, it begs the question: Who will benefit from this value?
History shows that technological revolutions often increase inequality, with benefits concentrated among those who own or control the new technologies. Without careful management, AI could exacerbate existing economic divides.
During the Industrial Revolution, introducing new manufacturing technologies like steam power, mechanized textile production, and improved metalworking led to massive increases in productivity and wealth creation. However, the benefits were not evenly distributed:
- Factory owners and industrialists (like textile mill owners) saw their wealth grow enormously as they controlled the new means of production.
- Skilled workers who could operate the new machinery often saw improved wages.
- However, many traditional artisans and craftsmen (like hand-loom weavers) were displaced by machines and lost their livelihoods.
- Unskilled factory workers often faced poor working conditions, long hours, and low wages.
This technological shift contributed to widening inequality between the new industrial capitalist class and the working class and between industrialized and non-industrialized regions.
Murati suggested that AI’s impact might necessitate a fundamental rethinking of how we structure our society: “If the nature of jobs really changes, then how are we distributing sort of the economic value into society? Is it through public benefits? Is it through UBI? Is it through some other new system?”
This is a radical proposition. Ideas like Universal Basic Income (UBI), once considered fringe, are now being seriously discussed by a leader in the AI field. Interestingly, Murati’s mention of UBI mirrors the thought process of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who has advocated for UBI since the early 2010s.
Throughout her talk, Murati emphasized the need for more research and preparation:
We should be studying what’s going on right now with the nature of work, the nature of education, and that’s going to help us predict for how to prepare for these increased capabilities.
Mira Murati, CTO, OpenAI
A future in flux
As Murati points out, the development of AI inevitably carries some level of risk. Mitigating these risks requires a collaborative approach, with responsibilities shared among AI creators, end-users, regulatory bodies, and society at large.
The impact of AI on the job market remains a topic of debate. While some foresee widespread displacement, others anticipate a shift towards increased productivity and innovation. AI’s capacity to streamline routine tasks could free up human resources for more creative endeavors, potentially serving as a catalyst for ideation and problem-solving.
However, intellectual property poses challenges for AI-generated content. Copyright concerns may lead organizations to utilize AI as a foundational tool in their creative processes rather than relying on it for finished products. This approach could balance leveraging AI’s capabilities and maintaining human oversight and originality.
