The Impacts of AI: Will AI take my job?

ChatGPT, Bard and Meta AI it is clear to see that the AI arms race is heating up amongst the big boys, but what are the impacts of AI? Will AI cause job losses? Will it lead to job creation? Higher productivity? Does it have the potential to revolutionise business? Maybe even the world?

We at Vyabul are looking to answer these questions and understand what the true impact of AI could be.

How will AI change the face of business?

AI certainly has the potential to change the way we work and with that it will also bring a new market to the business environment. This isn’t just in the context of a solution however. Sure we will see plenty of AI tools flocking the market across various niches, but you also have to understand the opportunity in the context of implementation partners, AI consultancies and new cybersecurity solutions.

With a new technology comes a new market which in turn presents many new business opportunities. We are excited to see what new organisations emerge in this space. However, like with any new advancement, we will likely see some businesses become redundant…For better or worse #bringbackblockbuster.

Will AI Impact everyday life?

You bet it will. Given the pace at which this technology is advancing we could see some very interesting developments in our daily life. For example, imagine:

1. An AI pocket assistant – Speech recognition allows it to understand your conversations and integrations with smartwatches, online shopping, social media profiles and personal calendars will help it to build your profile. AI could know more about you than you and be able to serve on demand exactly what you need whenever you need it. Used properly this could make our lives far more efficient, but maybe a little scary from an influence perspective (think Cambridge analytica) or it could end up being a constant nag…Kinda like that fairy in Ocarina of time.
2. Verification necessity – Elon Musk is onto something with those blue ticks you know…For now the launch is not quite the right time and many wondering why on earth they would pay for a blue tick. However, the landscape of the internet is going to fundamentally change very quickly. AI makes content generation very easy and combined with deepfake and voice synthesisation technology it is going to be difficult soon to see the wood for the trees so to speak. How will you know what content is human generated, what is AI generated? What news articles are real and fake? What speeches are made or staged? With blue ticks that’s how…Or something similar!
3. Marketing and SEO optimisation – I believe we are going to see some big developments here and I think Google and Meta hold the box seat. ChatGPT is undoubtedly an impressive tool, but Google and Meta have a richer dataset from which to draw from. For instance imagine I own a local plumbing business in Oxford. Well Google and Meta know exactly who is a potential customer in the area, what they search and how they search it. A Google or Meta generative AI can therefore produce SEO optimised content for that specific niche and specific area. Whilst also deriving the best advertising strategy and channels to maximise conversion.

Will AI take my job?

According to a report by Goldman Sachs the introduction of AI could displace 300 million jobs across Europe and the US and this is not without context. Generative AI is becoming more and more sophisticated and in certain fields outputs can already be indistinguishable from Human outputs.

This is most often in an area such as administration or finance in which there are tangible outputs based on clearly defined rules. However, the advance of generative AI is already becoming a little scarier…Now even creative roles are no longer immune. Tools such as mid-journey can produce some pretty sophisticated artwork based on basic prompts. Whilst AI voice and video generation is rapidly gaining traction.

However, I see AI as a supplemental asset to existing workers. For instance AI can design a base level logo and a graphic artist can configure it to exact specifications. The finance team can use AI to put together financial accounts, but they can then refine and interpret the information. These types of co-creation environments should increase productivity, reduce the boring tasks and allow employees to focus on strategic high value work. At least that’s the hope!

What Jobs will be left after AI?

• Physical jobs – AI in at least the near term (next 10 years) is unlikely to serve you lunch at the local Café or fix your plumbing. In that context AI will need to be combined with physical robotics and machinery. With current technology, this still feels like a fair way off.
• AI Developers/Programmers – AI needs to be properly configured and prompted to produce the desired end-result. For example if I wanted AI to produce my financial accounts it could do so under numerous different bases depending on how I want them presented. For instance do I wish to use straight line or declining balance depreciation? FIFO or LIFO? You need staff who can program these appropriately and make necessary adjustments when required.
• AI managers – There needs to be a team to oversee and troubleshoot an AI operation. If AI starts doing something wrong and no one spots it early, it could cause irreparable damage. For instance, if your chatbot cuts customers off after 5 minutes due to an error you are going to have some pretty angry customers pretty fast unless it is rectified quickly.
• Cybersecurity – With more systems and technology replacing core operations you are going to need to invest in security. Losses can already be fairly significant due to a cyber event, but if a hacker can alter the source code of your AI then things could get even worse! AI at its core is still a coded system and whilst a human could see something wrong, AI will just follow the protocol it has. A protocol which may have been manipulated!

What are the risks of AI?

• Misinformation – AI especially combined with voice models and deepfake technology can be an extremely strong tool to spread misinformation. We already tend to consume much of our news through various social media and video on-demand channels. Could it be a battle in the future to know what is real and what is not?
• Fraud – AI can learn and replicate your dialect and with voice tools designed to sound like you this can then be a potent cocktail for fraud. Your partner phones as she can’t remember the security password for the joint account…But is it even them?! Scary stuff.
• Content, content and more content – We touched upon how easy it is now to generate content through AI. With this comes the risk that the value of our available content is diluted. Generative AI is typically going to create very similar content and new original content is going to be difficult to find in the sea of SEO optimised AI content. Is the internet about to be destroyed by robots?

Summary

We think AI will make some big changes to the business environment and the way we work and live. With the level of investment and seemingly rapid progression of AI technology there are big possibilities for the future. With possibility comes opportunity and we will definitely see plenty of scope for new businesses and new career paths. However, we are also going to see some existing businesses and career paths become redundant.

Here in England my money is on the politicians to fall first….They are at risk of any sort of intelligence.

So what do you think? Do you think AI is going to be a good thing or a bad thing? Will it facilitate jobs or replace them? Are we talking revolution or simple adjustment? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!