AI won't take your job, might shrink your wages, European Central Bank reckons
- Reference: 1701246495
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/11/29/ai_ecb_jobs/
- Source link:
After assessing nine years of data gathered across 16 European countries, the ECB [1]found high-skilled jobs in fields impacted by AI may grow by between 2.6 and 4.3 percent. "We find a positive association between AI-enabled automation and changes in employment," the study states.
Low-skilled jobs may also be safe, in Europe at least. "For occupations where average educational attainment is in the low and medium-skill groups, AI exposure does not seem to shake things up significantly," the document adds.
[2]
The findings contrast with the history of automation, which typically leads to a reduction of available low and medium-skill jobs as manual tasks are made redundant by technology, the team notes in their [3]paper [PDF].
[4]
[5]
When considering AI's impact on wages, the ECB could not find a “clear signal" on which to base a prediction – but the study notes its data "suggests neutral to slightly negative impacts" on wages. The reason for that isn't made clear in the research.
Another finding in the document is that skilled workers and younger professionals are gaining the most as AI proliferates in the workplace.
[6]
The boffins warn that their findings should be treated with caution, and that "these results do not amount to an acquittal" of the threats AI could impose on the future of the job market.
"AI-enabled technologies continue to be developed and adopted. Most of their impact on employment and wages – and therefore on growth and equality – has yet to be seen," the team concludes.
And don't assume this applies to the US
The conclusions about the EU job market don't necessarily translate to the US, the researchers caution, noting that their results contrast with previous findings from American researchers.
Research on the effect of AI on jobs in the US has [7]indicated that generative AI could cause 2.4 million job losses by 2030. Large tech players [8]like IBM have also cited AI as a reason to lay off thousands of people whose jobs could be replaced by software.
[9]Worried about being replaced by a robot? Become a physicist
[10]Generative AI won't steal your job, just change it, says UN
[11]AI is great at one thing: Driving next waves of layoffs
[12]OECD finds 27% of jobs are under threat from AI
According to the ECB report, data suggests lower-skilled workers in the US aren't as safe as they are in Europe, with American indicators suggesting AI "tends to reduce the number of low-skilled jobs." The report's authors contrast that outcome to the situation in France, where they argue there's been a positive association between automation and increasing employment of unskilled industrial workers in recent years.
"Our results on the positive association between AI-enabled automation and employment should be taken with caution," the team concludes. "These results may not be extrapolated into the future, especially if the path followed by AI technologies focused on the automation of tasks and led to the creation of few new tasks." ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/economic-research/resbull/2023/html/ecb.rb231128~0a16e73d87.en.html
[2] 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=2ZWcZ1LQvEtNZ7GcdZQSQfgAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2831~fabeeb6849.en.pdf
[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=44ZWcZ1LQvEtNZ7GcdZQSQfgAAAAw&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=33ZWcZ1LQvEtNZ7GcdZQSQfgAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] 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=44ZWcZ1LQvEtNZ7GcdZQSQfgAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/06/generative_ai_jobs_forrester_report/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/02/ibm_ai_back_office_jobs/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/30/jobs_automation_risk/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/23/ilo_ai_jobs_impact_study/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/18/register_kettle_ai/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/oecd_finds_27_percent_of/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
For some reason, our organisation decided to throw its policy documentation at a chat bot; the idea being that project managers that don’t know the policy as well as they should can ask it questions.
The problems with this are obvious. Firstly, reliance on the bot means they won’t actually learn the policy. Second, the bot is unlikely to return answers beyond what is asked, risking missing big and important statements.
Considering that some very high value construction projects have missed on some absolutely critical features necessitating rework (and/or ill advised attempts to alleviate the policy that will compromise the performance of some very expensive equipment for decades) my opinion on the idea is that essentially that it is bollocks of the first degree.
The day someone is killed by this don’t say I didn’t warn the organisation in question.
AI chat bot can be a nice trap to catch workers who are lazy in a wrong way.
Just link the number of sessions with the chatbot to the spreadsheet for sackings and let it check the box after 5 sessions automatically next to the idle bones name.
There is another, even bigger problem - if the question is non-trivial, or is asked in a fashion that chatbots don't process well, there's a decent chance the bot could hallucinate, and return outright false answers. It's only a matter of time until this leads to some critical mistake due to someone trusting the bot. The only fix would be for people to start checking the bot's answers against the policy document. This, of course, would make the bot entirely useless.
Central Banks
Central Banks, often seen as out of touch, operate in a world where their employees reach the apex of wage scales, a height unattainable in the private sector without doing 'favours' for major corporations. When these banks pontificate about lowering wages, it's a double-edged sword. Firstly, it's to ensure that the proletariat doesn't inch too close to their hallowed earnings. Secondly, it's a ploy: if businesses and workers naively swallow this rhetoric and suppress wages, it plays into the hands of corporations relishing in these "low market" rates. Such corporations might then cast a favourable eye upon these Central Bank workers, perhaps rewarding them with some benefits as they graze towards retirement. It's a self-serving cycle, where the only winners are those already sitting comfortably at the top.
MRDA in Reverse....... Well, they wouldn’t say that, would they, although to deny it is futile
There are those who would tell you, one of main sectors at both the highest and lowest of levels of administration and execution, and at prime risk of AI led devastation, is centralised and globalised and fiat currency banking and its plethora of ponzi and unicorn investment support institutions.