example of article review assignment

example of article review assignment

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Job Market

1. Introduction

The way in which new technologies can impact employment has long intrigued economists. While it is evident that innovation has been the primary engine of growth of the global economy, it has also been associated, especially in recent years, with considerable dislocation in terms of the types of jobs available and the wages they pay. The recent wave of interest in computerization and, in particular, the development of AI, calls for an especially careful look at its implications for future employment. Past experience may not be a good guide; even if computerization has not led to net job losses in the past, it does not follow that it will not do so in the future. The fragmenting of the production process into many different tasks and the growing ease with which these tasks can be offshored means that different types of jobs (and different locations) are increasingly in direct competition with each other. This can make it difficult for workers who are displaced by new technologies to find equivalent jobs and may increase wage inequality as a whole as a result. That being said, a great deal depends on the exact nature of new technologies. For instance, a future in which driverless cars are the norm is likely to have very negative implications for the current crop of professional drivers, whereas past advances in AI have yet to significantly affect the job market for secretaries. Finally, the high and sustained premium to being educated in recent job markets has put a great deal of pressure on those with only a secondary education, to the point where many such workers have simply abandoned the job search.

2. The Rise of Artificial Intelligence

A common question to ask is whether or not artificial intelligence is something new. While it is true that certain aspects of AI are relatively recent, such as deep learning and natural language processing, AI itself as a concept has been around since the 1950s. Owing to this, it is curious to note that there wasn’t much concern as to how AI might affect employment until the turn of the century. This was largely due to the fact that AI was not able to be applied on a large scale and that its impacts on employment were negligible. From the early 2000s, there has been far more interest in understanding how AI can be applied to various problem-solving tasks so as to automate and eventually eliminate certain human jobs. This is due to the fact that computing power had reached a point where it was feasible to develop and run AI systems on a large scale and also that there have been advances in AI such that it is now capable of imitating human decision making for the aforementioned tasks.

It is ever more difficult to ignore the reality of artificial intelligence. This advance in technology comes with both positive and negative aspects to it, however, much like any other invention. One very prominent area of its influence is how AI may affect employment in the future. This is a topic that everyone is capable of having a vested interest in because at some point or another, everyone works. This essay will cover a brief background on AI, how it is applied to today’s job market, and what the potential is for AI to eliminate a large number of jobs that are considered necessary.

3. Effects of Artificial Intelligence on the Job Market

The other type describes AI complimenting human intelligence and the affect is not of job loss, but of an increase in demand for jobs. This has lead to growth in the technology industry, with Information Age jobs becoming the fastest growing sector in the United States. The increased efficiency and ability for AI to process and analyze data also generates higher demand for jobs that produce said data such as marketing and sales. Additionally, more complex AI contributes to higher demand in jobs that involve computer programming and engineering. This growth is not specific to industries involving AI, and acquisition of skills related to information and technology is becoming more essential. This contradicts the earlier statement of a concern for a lack of demand in job replacement, suggesting that the job market affected by AI is relative to the skills an individual has to offer.

After reviewing the different ways that AI is developed and implemented into organizations and industries, and the job market is affected in various contrasting ways. AI exhibits two main types, the substitution of human intelligence, and complementing human intelligence. The former has raised concerns about job loss. Analysts attempt to predict which jobs will be most likely to succumb to AI and answer that jobs tasks rather than jobs are more likely to be replaced. It is predicted that the more mundane, dangerous, repetitive and menial, a given job is, the more likely it is to be carried out by a machine. An example of this is in the banking industry, where automation has led to these machines replacing jobs such as tellers in favor of increased efficiency and lowered cost. AI has also had impact on outsourcing. The developing countries that benefit from business process outsourcing usually take place of the mundane job tasks outsourced from developed countries which is estimated to decrease in demand with the rise of AI. A positive outcome comes with the claim that new technology will create new jobs, however there is concern that this new job growth will not be enough to compensate for the jobs lost.

4. Mitigating the Impact of Artificial Intelligence

Another strategy would be keeping the minimum wage at an optimal level. If there is a large supply of labour due to worker displacement causing wages to decrease, maintaining a high minimum wage would result in excess supply of labour and unemployment in minimum wage jobs. Although this doesn’t directly mitigate the impacts of AI, solving the problem of increased income disparity and unemployment would ease the social costs. The income disparity caused by AI could also be mitigated through a more progressive tax system or higher taxes on the owners of capital.

Firstly, one strategy which could mitigate the negative effects of AI would be slowing down the implementation of AI into the workforce. A slower implementation of AI into the workforce would provide more time for the economy to adjust to the changes AI entails. This would reduce short run negative effects and allow for people to retrain and obtain new jobs when they lose theirs to AI. However, this strategy is contentious as it could also slow down the production of AI, hence reducing the time until the benefits of a high productivity economy with an abundance of consumer goods and services. This would also result in the cost of forgoing the higher living standards that would come from the earlier implementation of AI.

Developing strategies to mitigate the social costs may be a challenging task. Since AI is a general-purpose technology, there are no technologies specific destinations making mitigation difficult or perhaps unfeasible. For instance, creating jobs for people who will lose them to AI will not in general constitute mitigation, since AI can do those new jobs as well as the old ones. Despite this, there are still various ways of mitigating the negative impacts of AI.

5. Conclusion

One thing we can predict is that the impact of artificial intelligence on the job market will be significant and disruptive. It can potentially render many human workers jobless. Any repetitive task that can be automated will be at risk. Machines are getting better at doing “human” tasks. Unlike humans, machines do not require food, sleep, or breaks. They also do not come with the added baggage of paid leave, insurance, or compensation. When you compare the cost of employing a machine versus a human, the machine is far less expensive. Due to this cost benefit and the capability of machines, employers will seek to replace human workers with machines. An example of this can be found in the transportation industry. With the rapid progress in technology, it won’t be long until we see driverless trucks and taxis becoming the norm. The cost savings would be immense, considering that an employer would only need to make a one-time investment for the machine, as opposed to continuously paying a human driver. On the flip side, AI could potentially create job opportunities. First and foremost, someone will need to create, maintain, and improve AI. It’s safe to say that computer programmers will have job security. In a similar vein, machine learning is a field that will likely grow rapidly in the near future. People with expertise in machine learning will be valuable assets to various companies. These are high skill, high paying jobs. Enhancing and maintaining AI also requires a substantial amount of data analysis to ensure that the machine is performing its tasks to standard. This could create an increased demand for data analysts. Lastly, as automated services and AI entities become more common, there will be jobs that are specific to managing these services. An example would be an automated customer service system – there need to be people who oversee and ensure that the service is running smoothly, and these are the individuals who built the system in place.