Microsoft Research Identifies 40 Jobs Most Vulnerable To AI (fortune.com)
- Reference: 0178535422
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/08/01/1644200/microsoft-research-identifies-40-jobs-most-vulnerable-to-ai
- Source link: https://fortune.com/2025/07/31/microsoft-research-generative-ai-occupational-impact-jobs-most-and-least-likely-to-impact-teaching-office-jobs-college-gen-z-grads/
Interpreters and translators top the list, followed by historians and passenger attendants. Customer service and sales representatives, comprising about 5 million U.S. jobs, also face significant AI competition. Knowledge workers performing computer, math, or administrative tasks showed high vulnerability, as did sales positions involving information sharing and explanation. The research found occupations requiring Bachelor's degrees demonstrate higher AI applicability than those with lower educational requirements.
First, the top 10 least affected occupations by generative AI:
> 1. Dredge Operators
> 2. Bridge and Lock Tenders
> 3. Water Treatment Plant and System Operators
> 4. Foundry Mold and Coremakers
> 5. Rail-Track Laying and Maintenance Equipment Operators
> 6. Pile Driver Operators
> 7. Floor Sanders and Finishers
> 8. Orderlies
> 9. Motorboat Operators
> 10. Logging Equipment Operators
Now, the top 40 most affected occupations by generative AI:
> 1. Interpreters and Translators
> 2. Historians
> 3. Passenger Attendants
> 4. Sales Representatives of Services
> 5. Writers and Authors
> 6. Customer Service Representatives
> 7. CNC Tool Programmers
> 8. Telephone Operators
> 9. Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks
> 10. Broadcast Announcers and Radio DJs
> 11. Brokerage Clerks
> 12. Farm and Home Management Educators
> 13. Telemarketers
> 14. Concierges
> 15. Political Scientists
> 16. News Analysts, Reporters, Journalists
> 17. Mathematicians
> 18. Technical Writers
> 19. Proofreaders and Copy Markers
> 20. Hosts and Hostesses
> 21. Editors
> 22. Business Teachers, Postsecondary
> 23. Public Relations Specialists
> 24. Demonstrators and Product Promoters
> 25. Advertising Sales Agents
> 26. New Accounts Clerks
> 27. Statistical Assistants
> 28. Counter and Rental Clerks
> 29. Data Scientists
> 30. Personal Financial Advisors
> 31. Archivists
> 32. Economics Teachers, Postsecondary
> 33. Web Developers
> 34. Management Analysts
> 35. Geographers
> 36. Models
> 37. Market Research Analysts
> 38. Public Safety Telecommunicators
> 39. Switchboard Operators
> 40. Library Science Teachers, Postsecondary.
[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.07935
[2] https://fortune.com/2025/07/31/microsoft-research-generative-ai-occupational-impact-jobs-most-and-least-likely-to-impact-teaching-office-jobs-college-gen-z-grads/
Mathematicians? (Score:1)
That's a job?
Re:Mathematicians? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. There are a lot of industries that need specialists in math. I have trouble seeing them being all that replaceable though since if you need such a dedicated role, you probably also need their answers to be correct, verifiable, and often certifiable.
Re: Mathematicians? (Score:2)
Of course.. applied math is everywhere. Software is algebra & logic... architecture is geometry... I know math professors... but I only considered "mathematician" as a generic term, not a job title per se.
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Interestingly you don't see "actuary" or "accountant" or "statistician" - only Statistical Assistants. So in some ways there does seem to be a waterline.
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> you probably also need their answers to be correct, verifiable, and often certifiable.
Seems like a human problem too. If AI could do a chunk of the work, and you had humans verifying, you would need fewer humans - hence vulnerability
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Basically where it is going to go.
I saw a lot of BS in there as well. Whoever made this list is bad at their job... probably some slapped together output from a system claiming AI with weights on things that are heavier than they should be.
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Im saying manipulated, its manipulated.... and that is why these jobs will never go away.
Today, AI needs more verification than humans ... (Score:3)
>> you probably also need their answers to be correct, verifiable, and often certifiable.
> Seems like a human problem too. If AI could do a chunk of the work, and you had humans verifying, you would need fewer humans - hence vulnerability
The current AI state of the art is that AI needs more human verification than humans do. :-)
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Or said differently, there isn't a lot of human professionals that require AI verification...
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Never took a college level math course?
Vulnerable or Enhanced? (Score:2)
Mathematician is a valid job just like any science specialization. What I fail to see is how these jobs are really vulnerable to AI. I can definitely see that the job will be transformed by AI - much like physics has been transformed by using machine learning for data analysis - but I do not see much chance that it will be eliminated by AI.
What I see happening is mathematicians using the powerful capabilities of AI to do more just like almost every other branch of science has so I see it more as tool tha
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> What I fail to see is how these jobs are really vulnerable to AI.
Fewer are needed to assist "regular" scientists and engineers. But this is probably more due to the type of AI people are not talking about these days. Old school expert systems and other older AI techniques. Mathematica and Matlab can use these "other" AI techniques to do quite a bit of the math, or double check it. LLM AI, maybe as a user interface to the other AI.
So when the breakthrough hits the news "AI answers advanced math questions", its really "AI natural language system interfaces with decades
Yes, honest-to-god Math PhD holding people ... (Score:2)
> That's a job?
I once worked on computational chemistry software. The CS department's requirement of calculus and differential equations helped here. So did the required first year physics. My elective first year chemistry thrilled the researchers at this very large chemical company. Why?
It was not because I knew enough math and science to create the computational chemistry software on my own, far from it. It was because the above made me knowledgeable enough to communicate with the PhD chemists and PhD mathematicians
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I was only making one point.. it's a bit of a joke. I've never seen "Mathematician" on a business card or as a job title.
Since *no one* was wondering, yes, I'm a mathematician. A very long in the tooth one, with but a lowly BMath, but one nonetheless.
But job titles are going to be the application area most likely : Project Manager, Professor, or Electrical Engineer, etc
I love math! I see math everywhere in daily life from music to architecture.
I also consider programming and networking to be applied mathem
Historians are not impacted by AI (Score:4, Insightful)
They are impacted by politics not AI. Specifically historians have this really really bad habit of bringing up inconvenient truths.
My personal favorite example is that we know the entire Christian Bible is just absolute bupkis. With the best example being that with God's help Jewish people took 40 years to do a two-day walk. But absolutely everything you know about American history is complete bullshit too. My favorite there being that the revolutionary war was fought by the American ruling class and the general public didn't care much one way or the other. Also the volunteer soldiers they did have, which were few and far between, were also completely useless and the war was fought almost entirely with paid mercenaries.
I could go on but yeah the problem with historians have is that real history isn't something people at the top want taught. Go back to worshiping Christopher Columbus.
And an AI isn't going to be able to do that analysis. And knowing that truth is the useful part.
Re:Historians are not impacted by AI (Score:5, Insightful)
Kinda reads like a list put together by someone who doesn't actually know what the jobs do and thus they must be easily replaced.
Re: Historians are not impacted by AI (Score:2)
I've been a professional CNC programmer since 96, and now own and run my own shop. I can see AI agents greatly facilitating CNC programming, but with human supervision and review, at least for a while. This could easily result in one programmer doing the work of many, putting the many out of work. I think that's how it's likely to work for many of these job titles.
Re: Historians are not impacted by AI (Score:2)
I could see it actually working there because you can simulate the process before actually running the code. On the other hand, the simulation is only as good as the input. If the stock isn't correctly modeled then the simulation will be incorrect.
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I have mixed feelings on this. I can see your point and it is a plausible future, but I remain skeptical of the time savings. Something I have noticed about reviewing AI generated materials is they are really good at looking right but finding ways to be subtly wrong. They would make great trainers for how to review things, but it sometimes feels like the extra review/validation needed eats up the time savings of not doing the work in the first place. Though of course now we are just getting pressure to
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> I've been a professional CNC programmer since 96, and now own and run my own shop. I can see AI agents greatly facilitating CNC programming, but with human supervision and review, at least for a while. This could easily result in one programmer doing the work of many, putting the many out of work. I think that's how it's likely to work for many of these job titles.
This is the history of technological advance. Technology is that which amplifies the work done by a person, and pretty much all technology has reduced the number of people needed to do a particular job.
Re: Historians are not impacted by AI (Score:2)
Exactly.
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> Kinda reads like a list put together by someone who doesn't actually know what the jobs do and thus they must be easily replaced.
Yea. Everyone seems to focus on 'white collar' jobs and feel the 'blue collar' ones will be safe. I personally think one overlooked area is jobs that are repetitive so that automation can do them with AI providing oversight for those done outside a stable, consistent environment like a factory floor. Special trained AI that recognize environmental clues an expert would can then guide robots doing the task. Generalized AI tools are a mess because while they know many answers they may not know the right o
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So your prediction is only specialist will have jobs. What happens when they all die of old age or retire? AI better be perfect, because all the youngsters won't have the expertise to take over for the retired person because we never hired them in the first place.
This would be a lot more entertaining if I wasn't part of the system. I'm just thankful that replacing me requires either an entirely different way of doing the job along with a very large capital investment or otherwise hiring 3 other people to do
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[1]https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=1950s+picture+of+Jesus
Re: Historians are not impacted by AI (Score:2)
Clearly you do not know any Mormons.
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I don't but [1]this [google.com] doesn't show any such image of Jesus, either.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Mormon+Jesus&sclient=img&udm=2
Re: (Score:2)
[1]This famous painting [wordpress.com] by [2]Warner Sallman called “The Head of Christ” [wikipedia.org] of a blue-eyed Jesus was ubiquitous in the 1950s and 1960s. The picture might be called the "Cold War Christ".
[1] https://comeholyspirit.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/jesus-christ-70.jpg
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_Christ
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Add the "Writer And Authors" to the got-it-wrong-list too. Sure, LLMs can generate slop writing that some will buy initially but it'll get old pretty quick.
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Do you have a source for these things? This is fascinating!
> My favorite there being that the revolutionary war was fought by the American ruling class and the general public didn't care much one way or the other.
No doubt the ruling class had the most to gain. But the general public not really caring isn't something I've heard before.
> Also the volunteer soldiers they did have, which were few and far between, were also completely useless and the war was fought almost entirely with paid mercenaries.
I know th
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There was most certainly a percentage of colonial society that did not want to separate from the British. The primary drive for the revolution was most certainly rich white men not wanting to pay taxes or take orders from England. They wanted to do what they wanted to do.
As far as mercenaries for the colonist, I've never heard that either.
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Literally none of the things he mentioned in his post are accurate. I wrote a more detailed reply above, but - don't believe everything you read on the internet, folks!
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> My favorite there being that the revolutionary war was fought by the American ruling class and the general public didn't care much one way or the other. Also the volunteer soldiers they did have, which were few and far between, were also completely useless and the war was fought almost entirely with paid mercenaries.
Either way, the ends justified the means because England was never going to nerf its monarchy if we were still saying "long live the king!" from across the pond. It might be nice to imagine the USA being ruled by the Labour Party right now, but if we were in that specific timeline where America never had its revolution and England still somehow became a democracy, who's to say those alternate-reality Americans would've voted any differently than ours? I'm picturing Trump as Prime Minister, scheming how he
Monarchs Nerfed before US Revolution (Score:2)
> England was never going to nerf its monarchy if we were still saying "long live the king!" from across the pond.
Actually we "nerfed" the monarchy in 1649 while you were still part of the UK and still saying "god save the king!" from across the pond. It happened as a result of the [1]English civil war [wikipedia.org] that established parliament's pre-eminence over the monarchy - and the "nerfing" was pretty severe since Charles I was beheaded! While the monarchy was restored in 1660 it was as a figurehead position with little to no political power, or as you would put it, a severely "nerfed" version of what went before!
Even if you h
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
Re: (Score:2)
And the Continental Congress thought they had a shot at peaceful revolution by offering the king power back, by having him side with them as the legislature for America and cutting Parliament out. He was smart enough not to humor them.
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>> England was never going to nerf its monarchy if we were still saying "long live the king!" from across the pond.
> Actually we "nerfed" the monarchy in 1649 while you were still part of the UK and still saying "god save the king!" from across the pond. It happened as a result of the [1]English civil war [wikipedia.org] that established parliament's pre-eminence over the monarchy - and the "nerfing" was pretty severe since Charles I was beheaded! While the monarchy was restored in 1660 it was as a figurehead position with little to no political power, or as you would put it, a severely "nerfed" version of what went before!
Not exactly. The restoration brought back a king (Charles II) who had considerable power -- conducting wars, dismissing lords, granting the charter to the East India Company thus creating a rich and powerful supporter, refusing to persecute Catholics, dissolving Parliament, etc.
Parliament got a bit tired of having a powerful activist king so shortly after he died they fired the monarchy again in The Glorious Revolution of 1688 with dethroned Charles II's successor James II. This time the power rearrangement
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
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While I generally agree that History as we know it today is full of inaccurate interpretation, the AI has a chance to make history a lot more factual. Thing is, I don't think anyone is interested in purely factual history.
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LLM can do much better than historians because you can actually tell them to only look at contemporary sources or only correspondence, etc. LLMs are also not attached to specific point of view and do not care if they upset someone with their output. Take what happening in Israel right now - no historian would touch it because of how controversial the subject is.
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> LLMs are also not attached to specific point of view and do not care if they upset someone with their output
cough Grok nerfing cough ... The LLMs might not care, but the ones with the capacity to mindfuck them might...
> Take what happening in Israel right now - no historian would touch it because of how controversial the subject is
Well, sure. But not for what you cite. Rather, it's not history yet as it's ongoing and the full details are still in flux.
Historians are not impacted by politics (Score:2)
> They are impacted by politics not AI.
Historians impacted by politics are doing it wrong. They should be quietly documenting what is happening, not getting involved in the politics. As a person living through the events you are more likely to have a bias than someone analyzing the data decades later. The folks that come later will probably do a better analysis. So save document, make observations and record them, try to be objective. Give the less biased historians to come later as much good data to work with as possible. That's the real role o
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Ironic that you criticize historians for bringing up inconvenient truths when you bring up all falsehoods:
1) The distance from Egypt to Canaan is ~250 miles. No human could walk that in 2 days. Yes, Exodus is not historical, but your take on it is even falser.
2) We have detailed records of the Continental Army. Almost all soldiers were small farmers, laborers, and tradesmen.
3) The colonists were deeply engaged. Although 20-30% were neutral or loyalist (some sources suggest 1/3 loyalist, 1/3 neutral, 1/3 pat
Telemarketers (Score:2)
Oh no. At least India will finally fucking get a round of layoffs.
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The automation will become even more relentless.
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Automation runs into the BRICK WALL of ..." I insist on watching the musicians play music ..." or ... "I insist on watching the chef grill my steak ..." or "... I insist on watching a craftsman forge my knife-blade and carve the rosewood grip." These are modest members of a classical culture, so TUNNELLING not allowed; not everyone is a peon or drooling consumer.
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One supposedly leading AI company was really just Actual Indians.
And they were backed by M$ and Oracle.
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Yeah, I imagine copilot is really just a room full of jeets frantically googling everything in real time.
At least I hope so.
Some oddities... (Score:2)
Now I know it isn't *generative* AI specifically, but most of those jobs are at pretty high risk of some related form of 'AI'. Was in a store and the floor polisher was operating autonomously among the shoppers.
On the impacted, the passenger attendant one strikes me as odd. The airlines don't actually care to provide the service that much, but since they are mandated by law to have that much staff to help with potential emergency situations, they put them to work doing attendant work for the 99% of the ti
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I meant to say that most of those 'safe' jobs specifically are at high risk of 'AI' replacement, even if not generative.
What they don't tell you (Score:2)
All jobs are going to be affected by AI when there's a race to the bottom in the labor market for the jobs that AI can't do.
Hell, look at low HVAC job wages in Florida. That's not even being caused by AI (yet) - there's just too many people competing for trade jobs with too few open positions. It's all well and good to imagine that everybody put out of work is just going to find new employment at jobs that aren't feeling the crunch from AI, but the problem with that is: Everybody else who lost their job d
Translators and interpreters? Writers and authors? (Score:5, Interesting)
AI doesn't understand the subtleties of language. People quickly notice AI drivel in these lines of work. Sure, their bosses might think these people are "expendable", but really these are people that understand what's needed beyond the basics.
Those who stick to the human touch will end up profiting a lot, simply because AI is, in its core, a simple statistics engine and their clients notice. Humans understand things which the current way of how AI works simply will never be able to reproduce.
Yes, AI might produce correct results. However, it won't go beyond simply being correct and provide a translation of the emotion, simply because it hasn't got and doesn't understand emotion.
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AI Doesn't care.
Just push the crap out and make sound "big" and important.
(to hell with correct content)
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The enshitification will continue until it is no longer profitable. Cheap bad translations will choke the market for good translators.
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I'll pull a number out of my ass and will claim that in at least 95% of all translation, quality and emotion does not matter at all.
Maybe you think of translating a masterpiece, a best-selling book. They are outnumbered by an order of magnitude by apps, websites, technical manuals, policy documents, reports, all mass-produced by every business out there and require translation but no one cares about the details.
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Technical manuals have legal consequences if they are incorrect, either in source or in translation. The same will apply to many other documents too. For many businesses, that will act as a deterrent.
For others, not so much. When your product is cheap Chinese crap, you're not going to GAF about the manual either. Hell, many product manuals have been indistinguishable from AI slop for years already.
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Think interpreters especially. They're used in often politically charged scenarios between potentially unfriendly actors where a realtively simple misunderstand can have huge consequences. This quite literally happend between Couch F**ker and Zelenskyy a few months ago. Zelenskyy tried to speak English because it's well known Trump doesn't like interpreters, made a mistake, and Couch F**ker blew up on him in an entirely inappropriate, but consequential way. AI didn't even have to be involved for this to
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> AI doesn't understand the subtleties of language. People quickly notice AI drivel in these lines of work. Sure, their bosses might think these people are "expendable", but really these are people that understand what's needed beyond the basics.
The question is, who wants to pay for a professional (human) interpreter when you can use a free app to converse with people in dozens of languages? It may not catch all the subtleties, but in most cases it's likely good enough.
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In most cases, the two sides can understand each other "enough" to complete the interaction without any AI. See also any grocery delivery or Uber driver in FL. The reason interpreters are needed is exactly because "most cases" don't require it, but when the case does require it, it's a really big deal when the wrong option is chosen. Interpreters even understand the subtly enough to know when to pause and ask a clarifying question. AI just powers through as if it knows it all.
I dunno about this (Score:2)
Some of these I feel like have already reached equilibrium and this is a bit of "calling something that exists AI now"
Concierge, Passenger Attendant, Counter Clerks, Rental Clerks, Ticket agents, really anything that is "human to human customer service" like that, is AI really doing something new or are we just supplanting "using google and the app".
Most people when they are interfacing with those people already usually already have exhausted the non-human methods and the people who refuse to use those and
Re: (Score:1)
correct -- this is an AI generated list about jobs that AI has been told it will be able to replace, so it spit out a handy list... a list just long enough that most people will skim and not even realize that they list repeats itself several times in just the ways you mentioned.
Air traffic controllers (Score:2)
Do I chart a course for a career change
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set a course for adventure, your mind on a new romance!
Some of these are obviously stupid (Score:3)
14. Concierges
To the extent that these jobs exist at all, I don't think they're going away any time soon. Part of the benefit of a concierge is the prestige of having one, or to have a real person coordinate and organize things for you. I think more people might have access to a facsimile of a concierge now. No longer for fancy hotels and rich people only.
15. Political Scientists
16. News Analysts, Reporters, Journalists
Um, no. To be good at any of these things, you need to have lived in this world as a human and have real human concerns. AI can't show up at press conferences or do investigative journalism by itself, so I think these ones are majorly overblown. Will the big newspapers and cable news networks survive? Totally different question. I myself support a few independent journalists that do good work because they're more local and more specialized than the big Canadian newspapers are.
20. Hosts and Hostesses
What? Like, am I misunderstanding what they think these are? Someone that greets you at a restaurant or similar? That takes you to your table? You certainly don't need an AI to coordinate table assignment, the host(ess) is there to give a human touch to it rather than let you seat yourself.
29. Data Scientists
Anything with science in the name is off the table. At the very least, they need to be there to supervise the AI. But again, human concerns are what lead to human analysis. Generative AI still can't do new things or ask meaningful questions.
35. Geographers
Spoken like someone that thinks geography is just about maps. I have a friend that did a geography PhD on the sounds of a geographic region. Not just the ambient sounds of a forest or a city, but about the music and the culture. She recorded military planes landing with killed soldiers on them--obviously you can't tell that from the sound, but as part of the context, it's something that she felt was worth considering. Why would an AI ever think about that? Again: human concerns.
36. Models
Sort of. I think we're seeing this already, but I think there's always going to be a place for beautiful people that we know are real, beautiful people. Fashion and attractiveness move in cycles (see the cycles of something like jeans, or moustaches)--people love novelty. AI will only ever be able to respond to those things, because by the very nature of trying to make a thing happen, the counter-culture moves into the position of novelty and becomes the new hotness. AI generated perfection will become a dominant aesthetic for a while but then some other weird thing will pop up and they'll have to move to cover that after.
Anyway, some of these are probably sadly dead professions, they're not wrong. Translation is like the origination of LLMs, that's only going to get better and better. I can teach myself the basics of almost anything now with ChatGPT as long as I'm diligent and skeptical. Nobody likes telemarketers and nobody will be sad to see that go or switch over to AI, honestly.
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I think you're missing the boat a bit. Yes, for example, in science you need people to maintain the guardrails. But you need fewer of these people to do that.
Yes, for high end hotels, you might still have a concierge. But for every other hotel that person will be replaced with a kiosk or robot.
Yes there will still be investigative journalists, but there will be almost no one writing "reporting" type news. It will be automatically generated.
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> 15. Political Scientists
> 16. News Analysts, Reporters, Journalists
> Um, no. To be good at any of these things, you need to have lived in this world as a human and have real human concerns.
That's exactly why they are going to be replaced by AI, to prevent anyone from doing the job with real human concerns.
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Sadly you are correct. Human concerns are BOTH a cost & a benefit. In the not-too-distant future a bloodbath will occur, between those who demand human-human interaction and those who profit by its absence.
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Beautiful people will be hard pressed to get advertising jobs in the future because we are almost there already. Imagine in the not so distant future, instead of see a model with clothes on, you'll be able to scan yourself into the computer and then model those same close on yourself, right in front of you before you buy.
Instead of a real person on the cover of a magazine, you'll have a completely fake person that you wouldn't know was fake unless you were specifically told. This link took way to long to fi
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"21. Editors"
I mean, it depends on what you mean by "editing". An LLM correcting errors in spelling? Sure. Grammar and punctuation? I guess: most people couldn't tell if it's right anyway.
An LLM doing fact checking? That is, uh, not their wheelhouse?
Journalists? Archivists? Historians? (Score:2)
Jobs which should not make up things, but properly record, and make available events which occurred which were recorded.
Definitely not something you want to replace with bullshit generators.
Als could make the work of them easier, saving time to dig through the increasing amount of information.
Was this list generated by AI? (Score:2)
FAA may have an issue with "3. Passenger Attendants". Teaching positions are also quite safe, as AI seems incapable for the time being to separate fact from fiction (to put it mildly). Jobs that carry any responsibility, i.e someone has to sign off on it, are also safe because if there is anything tech bros would never do is take responsibility for their products. BS jobs on the other hand can easily be handled by AI - political and sports commentators, salesmen, models, "analysits" of various kinds ....
Motorboat operators? (Score:2)
I'm pretty certain a self-driving motorboat will be possible.
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I'm not sure I'd like to be on waterskis on the same lake with a self-driving motorboat...
I don't think so, for many of those (Score:2)
That really looks like a list that was generated by AI. Many of those jobs require performing physical tasks, so until they can make generic robots that can perform those tasks, those people will still have jobs.
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You're correct about robots being a prerequisite here, but I think you underestimate the rate at which robotics is developing right now. It hasn't had a big "moment" like the release of ChatGPT to make people realize what possible, but the same concepts that made LLMs so capable are being applied to robots right now (very large neural networks and massive GPU power) and they are getting some amazing results.
It's hard to predict the future, but you have to consider the possibility that these researchers may
Orderlies?! (Score:2)
Do they mean the people that work in hospitals that physically assist when a patient is out of control?
If so then whoever put that job on the list is an idiot that doesn't know about regulations for robots that are expected to interface with humans. The issue is human safety as robots have no problem tearing people in half. As a result we have safety requirements that means robots that interface with humans must be back-driveable and not exert over a certain amount of force specifically so to prevent human
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Orderlies are on the 'least affected' list.
top 10 are union jobs! (Score:2)
top 10 are union jobs!
My career as a switchboard operator is sunk! (Score:2)
Potentially I can be retrained as a telegraph courier?
Train Engineer (Score:2)
How is train engineer not on the list? I've been wondering for years why trains aren't automated.
Re: (Score:2)
As I understand it, a large chunk of train operations (in the US anyway) are already largely automated, with human oversight.
And most of the horrific train accidents in recent history have involved trains where the aforementioned automations had not been implemented.
Reporters? (Score:2)
So where does the news come from without reporters? Will all "news" just become rehashed PR statements and AI hallucinations?
AI needs input. Without reporters, there is no input for real news.
Re: (Score:1)
You nailed it. AI needs input. I'm retired, of a "certain" age and have never used AI. When I amuse myself by conjuring various "weird" harmonic oscillators I find DDG.ai to be a valuable companion critiquing my model-building. It offers to do ALL the work, but of-course that misses the point. I generate diffy-Q solutions as input and DDG.ai comments. And occasionally DDG.ai for "format" parts of a solution ( say eigenvalues ) that do not help me to extend the model(s) into non-linear territory.
Re: (Score:2)
You won't need as many reporters. One will eventually be doing the job of 3 or 4. So sure, the job will exist, but it will be hyper-competitive. This will drive wages down for the job.
#2 least affected (Score:2)
I am actually kinda surprised at that one. It seems like it would be fairly easy to automate that one, not even sure you need AI.
It is just scheduling and some image processing/lidar/sonar/etc to make sure crafts are clear of, properly positioned in the lock before raising or lowering.
I don't really know, I am not lock operator and I am not belittling what they do but it seems to me it should be simpler automation problem than trying to do say, Self Driving for a car.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't be so sure. We keep hearing of air traffic failures and yet all those folks still have a job. Good enough is good enough. No one rich died, so no one really died at all.
Proofreaders lol (Score:2)
I'm loving the hubris that must go into making such a list
7. CNC Tool Programmers (Score:2)
Heh...
ROBOTS are NOT going to steal your job | Ram Air Intake
[1]https://youtu.be/GsxLF-Db7uk [youtu.be]
[1] https://youtu.be/GsxLF-Db7uk
They clearly missed (Score:2)
CEO COO CFO And all the 'C' Suite and other Executives - AI can do their jobs as well..
Writing (Score:2)
I think there's a big misunderstanding here. AI is great at producing output that looks like communication, but it's not communication. At best, it's entertaining noise.
Now I agree that a lot of writing is just that--marketing copy, for example--but if there's no intent behind the communication then it's meaningless. Can writers write faster with AI? Maybe, but you still need a writer. Writers generate meaning, and AI can't replace this.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
Switchboard Operators? (Score:2)
I thought they were eliminated 50 years ago.
"Research" or Speculation (Score:2)
This is informed speculation rather than research. It is mostly informed by the interests of the Microsoft executives who agreed to pay people to do it. I am not sure what those interests are, but they aren't spending money for nothing.
Hands on: OK - Work with information: not OK (Score:1)
I think that fairly well sums it up.
Unless your hands-on work is totally repetitive, like assembly line worker, warehouse work, or some agricultural workers, your job is probably safe. If you do hands-on work in construction, police, hospital, military; your job is probably safe.
If you work at a computer terminal, or some kind of paperwork; your job may not so safe.
"affected" by AI (Score:1)
The list says "affected" by AI, not replaced by AI. It seems like many of these jobs are in the category of "use AI as a tool to help you with your job." It may also mean that the people in those roles are more productive, so you may not need as many of them. Some may also be "AI can do your whole job," but not all of them. Ditch diggers are safe from both.
I would add (Score:2)
Judges, Lawyers and Politicians. Any job where you can just make it up along with the pretend results based on your politics.
The technical stuff will always be an issue with today's AI level since they have not gotten to the Intelligence part yet and correct answers are needed in most places.
Re: I would add (Score:2)
Definitely agree, call centre staff seems like a no brainer too.
Lawyers, accountants and call centre staff?? (Score:2)
Really surprised not to see those in this list.
Funny they had Economists on that list (Score:2)
Considering there is no unified theory of economics, just like there hasn't been a unified theory of physics. It seems a bit premature to declare the death of economics teaching.
#1 is clearly (Score:2)
Microsoft Researchers. Who needs researchers if AI can just do it for me?
Re: (Score:2)
Oddly they left human resources off the list this time.
The issue with these lists is these are job titles and wildly inaccurate job descriptions are obvious "provided by HR experts". You can tell it is some "HR expert" fabricated job title and description every slide show article discussing jobs and any kind of top / bottom 10 list and this one matches the pattern.
Traditionally, technology identifying jobs replaceable with better technology placed HR at the top of the list. This goes back to punch card co
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent funny, though the stronger flavor of the joke I was hoping for would have included something about the endangered jobs list being written by a GenAI and the Microsoft researchers intervening to get themselves off of the list--but failing in their attempts to get themselves included on the list of safe jobs.
However, looking at the long term track record of Microsoft Research against the reported budgets, I suspect the whole thing might be an AI confabulation. "This is not the Microsoft Research yo