Investment bank forecasts LLMs could put 300 million jobs at risk
- Reference: 1680022808
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/28/investment_bank_forecasts_llms_could/
- Source link:
The tech industry has seen burgeoning releases based on large language models, from the likes of [1]Google and [2]OpenAI , in partnership with Microsoft. Impressively aping human language and even producing working computer code, LLMs are at the centre of a media frenzy right now.
Impressive though they often are, any notion that they think or understand what they are saying is false, given their reliance on a statistical analysis of a large corpus of text.
[3]
Nonetheless, Goldman Sachs sees a significant disruption to the global jobs market, with around 300 million full-time equivalent workers in large global economies at risk, according to economists Joseph Briggs and Devesh Kodnani, who wrote the paper.
[4]
[5]
On the upside, investment in LLMs in the workplace is set to create a much-needed fillip for productivity. Over 10 years, generative AI could produce a $7 trillion boost to global GDP.
To get the benefits though, organizations need to invest. The Goldman report said that, assuming it followed similar trends to software investment in the 1990s, US spending on workplace LLMs and the surrounding tools could hit 1 percent of US GDP by 2030, amounting to about $230 billion, based on current figures.
[6]Financial red tape blamed for London losing Arm IPO
[7]British Prime Minister Sunak's plans for UK NFT on ice
[8]Ever suspected bankers used WhatsApp comms at work? $1.8b says you're right
[9]Now Microsoft injects Copilot AI into Dynamics 365
The [10]research assumes that about two-thirds of jobs in the US and Europe are set for some degree of AI automation. Those with less than half of their workload automated (around 63 percent in the US) would gain time to do something more useful than humdrum repetitive tasks.
Lawyers and those in administrative jobs are thought to be among the roles most at risk.
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Meanwhile, many outdoor and physical jobs would be unaffected, at least by LLMs. That's another 30 percent in the US. The remaining 7 percent, though, would be at risk of being replaced.
The study does note, though, that displaced workers may yet find new jobs themselves created by technical change. Citing a [12]paper by economist David Autor , they reason that six in 10 workers are today in occupations that did not exist in 1940.
Among candidates for new jobs could be police or security workers employed to catch criminals who use LLMs for various nefarious activities. Pan-European crime agency [13]Europol said AI language models could fuel fraud , cybercrime, and terrorism. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/27/ai_in_brief/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/26/openai_chatgpt_plugins/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZCNjgcM4xQ5m4rPDOFIFpAAAAAk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCNjgcM4xQ5m4rPDOFIFpAAAAAk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZCNjgcM4xQ5m4rPDOFIFpAAAAAk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/06/fca_rules_arm_listing/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/28/sunaks_plans_for_uk_nft/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/28/shadow_it_hedge_funds_wall_street/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/07/microsoft_dynamics365_copilot_ai/
[10] https://archive.ph/o/W32bo/https://publishing.gs.com/content/research/en/reports/2023/03/27/d64e052b-0f6e-45d7-967b-d7be35fabd16.html
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCNjgcM4xQ5m4rPDOFIFpAAAAAk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.nber.org/papers/w30389
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/28/chatgpt_europol_crime_report/?td=rt-3a
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Research from global investment bank
Or both
Wouldn't it be nice
if LLMs did away with companies like Goldman Sachs. It's a fairly simple bit of AI: buy it cheap, sell it high. Then we humble serfs can watch the masters of the universe join the great unwashed masses.
There's no timescale given for this (put me down for the 12th of Never), but in a healthy, advanced economy ~10% of workers will change jobs every year (either voluntarily or not). So while 300 million sounds a lot, it ain't all that.
The New New Thing
This sounds like an update of an old line: "Buy hammers! Hammers are the latest thing! They're the universal tool! They can be used for anything! "
they revel in it
what always gets me about these "MILLIONS OF JOBS WILL BE WIPED OUT!!!"
is not only the revelling in it that Bankers and Consultancies seem to do, too stupid to realise that they are themselves being automated out of their jobs, but also...when all these jobs have gone...when all that remains is AI and billionaire shareholders....whose ACTUALLY going to buy anything?
I mean what would happen if everyone in the World just turned around and said, we're not going ot buy anything but food..no flights, no money in the banks, no cars, no computers, nothing....what would these fools do?
Among candidates for new jobs could be workers employed to catch criminals who use LLMs
It's not a great selling point that this new tech could enable so much criminality that a major expansion in the number of police officers will be needed because of it. Especially as it won't be Microsoft or Google paying for those police officers.
However, the whole tone of the report trying to ride a wave of hype reads exactly like the reports that the likes of Gartner published last year about how the Metaverse was going to be similarly game changing. I mean, how's everybody enjoying watching their avatars in their new NFT costumes on their 3D headsets right now?
If I can have ChatGPT attend meetings for me
And provide me a few paragraph summary of the highlights and action items that apply to me, then it would really help my productivity!
If true, why gloom?
If technology can release people from drudgery, including that of banking, why bemoan it? For more than a century, perhaps even back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, there were farsighted people who recognised automation as a boon for humanity if organised properly.
The caveat above, leads to explanation of why in the prevailing mindset regarding organising an economy and the role of labour, it must fail. Automation, each of the physical and intellectual variety, means redundancy; concomitant factors of worklessness include much reduced, perhaps to subsistence level or below, income, and psychological impact engendered by perception of lack of worth in one's own eyes, in those of others too; few people regard being made redundant as presaging opportunity.
The Protestant work ethic has inveigled itself into Western thought.
Turned around, worklessness in the sense of no longer toiling, generally for others, can be positive for the individual and for everyone else about him. Examples of opportunities arising include time with family, support for ailing kinsfolk, engagement with the local community, intellectual and cultural self-advancement, attaining skills not tied to toil, and freedom to stretch creative 'muscle'.
The possibilities represent the converse of 'opportunity cost' arising from obligation to toil.
Yet, this freedom presupposes entitlement to a share of the 'wealth' created by the society in which one is embedded. The so-called wealth creators are dependent upon the interconnected society in which they dwell; for instance, physical infrastructure and social infrastructure, such as law and institutions promoting civil society.
Some will laze or become hedonistic. Why not, what does it matter if they don't harm others? A proportion will realise creative (including adventurous) urges, some of these of lasting cultural value. Others might set up enterprises (traditional or co-operative) to fill gaps in production and servicing of physical goods, or to aid other people in applying their creative abilities, e.g. via the Internet.
Pie in the sky? No, there is inadequate understanding by people in general of how potential for talent is distributed among the population. It exists in our common gene pool. Advantageous and serendipitous genetic combinations arise from all sectors of the population; assortative mating might concentrate these a little in some sections of society, but overall this has a negligible diminishing effect upon the remaining untapped possibilities.
Universal entitlement to a share of natural resources and what is manufactured from them is the only ethical means of coping with automation; it is productive: not charitable; the alternative being culls.
Universal basic income (UBI) awaits in the wings.
[Released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 international licence.]
Research from global investment bank
Does that automatically mean it's wrong, or just self-serving ?