People got used to living with AI quite quickly. ChatGPT is barely three years old, but it has already changed the way many of us communicate or handle large amounts of information.
It also raised serious concerns about employment. If machines become better than people at reading complex legal texts, translating languages, or presenting arguments, won’t those “old-fashioned” human employees become irrelevant? Won’t mass unemployment be inevitable?
However, when we look at the big numbers in the economy, that is not what is happening.
Unemployment in the European Union is at a record low of around 6%, half the level of ten years ago. In the United Kingdom it is even lower, at 5.1%, roughly the level of the early 2000s, and in the United States it is even lower, at 4.4%.
The reason so many jobs continue to exist is that while technology makes some human activities obsolete, it also creates new types of work.
It’s happened before. In 1800, for example, about a third of British workers were farmers. Today, the proportion dedicated to agriculture is around 1%.
The automation of agriculture allowed the country to become a leader of the Industrial Revolution.
Or more recently, following the installation of the world’s first ATM by Barclays in London in 1967, fears arose that bank branch staff would disappear.
The opposite happened. In the United States, during the 30 years of ATM expansion, the number of bank tellers actually increased by 10%. ATMs made it cheaper to open branches (because they needed less staff) and more communities gained access to financial services.
Only now, with a bank on every phone, is the number of bank employees in branches falling sharply.
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An imposition?
But yes, AI will eliminate some jobs. One-third of Americans fear losing their jobs to AI, and many of them are probably right.
But since the Industrial Revolution, the world has seen a succession of innovations that has sustained unprecedented exponential economic growth.
AI, like the computer, internet, railways or household appliances, is a slow revolution. You will gradually change habits, but in doing so you will create opportunities for new businesses to emerge.
And just as there was no immediate rise of AI in terms of economic growth, there is no immediate change in employment either. What we see, rather, are companies using AI as an excuse for traditional job cuts. This leads to another question: how AI will change the meaning of our work and how much money we will make.
With technology, the result can go in any direction.
Bank tellers became more valuable with the advent of ATMs because, instead of just counting money, they were able to offer advice. And in 2016, Geoff Hinton, a key figure in the development of AI, recommended that the world “stop training radiologists” because robots were outperforming humans in image analysis.
Ten years later, demand for radiologists in the United States is at an all-time high. Using AI to analyze images has made the job more valuable, not less, because radiologists can care for more patients (most of whom would probably prefer to deal with a human).
So, as a worker, the best thing to do is find a job where machines make you more productive, not one where you become a servant of machines.
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More inequality?
Another question that AI raises is whether it will reduce or increase inequality among workers.
At first, many thought that allowing everyone access to an AI assistant with skills to process information or communicate clearly would reduce income inequality. However, more recent research has found the opposite: highly skilled entrepreneurs benefit the most from access to AI support.
One reason is that knowing how to receive advice is in itself a skill. In my own research with colleagues, we found that giving high-quality advice to chess players barely narrowed the gap between the best and the worst, because lower-level players were less likely to follow good advice.
And perhaps that is the biggest risk that AI brings: that some people benefit much more than others.
In that scenario, a group could emerge that uses AI to manage their daily lives, but is trapped in low-productivity jobs with no prospects for a living wage. And another, smaller group of privileged, well-educated workers who thrive by controlling the machines and the wealth they generate.
Every technological revolution in history made the world richer, healthier, and more comfortable. But transitions are always difficult. What matters now is how societies can help everyone be the boss of the machines, and not their servants.
*Renaud Foucart is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at Lancaster University Management School.
This article was originally published by The Conversation
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