ChatGPT? Sure, I've heard it. But is AI coming for my job?
- Reference: 1707825695
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/02/13/chatgpt_survey/
- Source link:
According to the report, 89 percent of full-time office workers have heard of ChatGPT, and 74 percent have used it. While this is good news for AI devs, the figures also have a darker side: after using the tech, some workers realized that automation could threaten their employment.
Nearly half (47 percent) of workers worried that AI could replace their role, a substantial increase from the 29 percent with similar concerns in February 2023. The report observed: "Notably, the fear of AI automation continues to increase as more consumers have used ChatGPT over time."
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In-office workers were also significantly more worried than remote workers – 81 percent of office workers were jumpy about the potential of AI taking their roles, compared to 12 percent of hybrid workers and just 7 percent of full remote workers.
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But what to do? According to Jefferies, 82 percent of workers would look to add new skills to deal with a loss of employment due to automation. Slightly more (29 percent) would prefer to use an online platform such as Udemy than go down the college route (24 percent.) 17 percent hoped that their employer would provide some internal learning resource.
There was, however, excellent news for Microsoft and its AI tech giant rivals. 71 percent of full-time office workers in the US would be willing to pay for ChatGPT, according to the report, up from 59 percent in October 2023. That said, the percentage willing to pay the kind of money Microsoft and Google are asking remains low at only six percent ready to pay $31 or more per month, a doubling from the three percent of 2023.
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The percentage of respondents who didn't think ChatGPT was worth paying for also dropped, down to 29 percent in January 2024 from 41 percent in October 2023. Although Jefferies made much of the increase in the $31+ bracket, the biggest percentage jump was in respondents willing to pay between $11 - $15 per month – up to 16 percent from 7 percent.
[5]AI won't take your job, might shrink your wages, European Central Bank reckons
[6]Will AI take our jobs? That's what everyone is talking about at Davos right now
[7]Making sense of Microsoft's 'confusing' Copilot functionality carnival
[8]Forcing AI on developers is a bad idea that is going to happen
[9]BT is ditching workers faster than your internet connection with 55,000 for chop by 2030
Overall, users understand that AI tools don't come for free, but many are not currently willing to pay the prices demanded by the tech giants.
Jefferies' survey comes amid [10]reports that enthusiasm for automation elsewhere in the US economy is beginning to wane. Approximately a third fewer robots were ordered by North American companies in 2023 as worries (including concerns about the economy) led some to put off purchases, the first drop seen in five years. That said, a severe labor shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in some bumper years for automation manufacturers.
As AI automation continues to be pushed by much of the software industry, the experience of robotic automation vendors should be noted, particularly regarding costs and the willingness of enterprises and consumers to pay. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/29/ai_ecb_jobs/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/ai_davos_jobs/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/09/making_sense_of_microsoft_copilot/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/12/opinion_column_on_forcing_ai_features_on_developers/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/18/bt_redundancies_2030/
[10] https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/robot-invasion-hit-bump-2023-north-american-economy-cooled-2024-02-12/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"The people who are blocking progress ARE the problem."
But ... where's the progression? ChatGPT is not true AI; it cannot infer from its data set or increase its body of knowledge by any means other than being provided with new raw data. When an employer declares that they are using AI to replace people, surely they are the ones blocking progress because they've replaced a thinking, evolving brain with a set of programmed responses?
Re: Resistance to adaptation
"...those who have invested into property really don't want housing to become more affordable..."
One of the big WTFs everywhere is that governments simultaneously want to introduce policies to help first-time buyers buy a house while simultaneously wanting to keep the value of existing homeowners' homes high. Obviously those policies are incompatible with one another.
"The people who are resistant to that changing are generally those with said jobs simply because they may otherwise be unemployed"
And this is not limited to anything AI-related either. Vast swathes of policy in most modern western democracies favour the old over the young, even though the old, generally speaking, are far richer.
Re: Resistance to adaptation
Any politician that says that they want to make it easier to buy a house but won't abolish the Town & Country Planning Act of 1947 and its successors, and reduce immigration substantially is lying.
The last time more than 300k houses were built in a year was the 1930's because in 1947 we basically banned building.
The population of the UK in 1997 was 58m. Last year it passed 67m.
The average house price was 57k in 1997. As of 2016 ( latest data I can easily find ) it's £230k.
My shop is pushing the line that AI will not take your job, it’s your colleagues using AI who will takeaway your job!
Really? I tend to find sitting back for a couple of years and then charging an exorbitant consultant fee to spray the blood off the walls from the last hype bubble is a job that isn't going away anytime soon.
It's not there - yet - but it is certainly possible. I'd quite like the tech to get good enough in about 10 years time please, which would be ideal timing for a fat redundancy payoff.
One of the most intriguing possibilities for me is in writing technical standards. At the moment there are lots of variations within national borders and across different institutions on such things; however, if you were to feed an AI bot the fundamental physical properties and otherwise "same" criteria for requirements; by rights it should converge on a common solution regardless of political and commercial interests.
Feed it those as well and you're back to square one, the standards will still be produced with those interests in mind over y'know, actual standardisation.
Of course, there is also the well known origins of the word Sabotage; derived from the name of a type of shoe being thrown into the machines taking workers jobs. Sabotage of prospective AIs stealing jobs IS a thing on various trade unions radar, and rightly so.
I'm not worried about AI taking my job. I am however worried about bosses who think AI can take over my job.
A previous employer thought that "the cloud" could take over my job. That company is no longer in business.
Resistance to adaptation
"Nearly half (47 percent) of workers worried that AI could replace their role"
Consider some other statements about things people might currently be worried about.
- Dying in a corridor at an NHS hospital.
- How their children will be able to find/buy/afford a house.
- Electric cars
- (endless other things)
As usual the people who are most resistant to change are those who have a vested interest in it not changing. If you consider any of the points above they are really a sign that some things have moved on, whilst other related things have not. The most obvious thing being a big increase in population versus how older models for healthcare, housing and transport actually work in reality.
For instance, those who have invested into property really don't want housing to become more affordable. You can apply similar logic to the other things. Consider who is resistant to those things changing. Often a relative minority at the detriment of the majority.
That leads us to the point about jobs in this article. The people who are resistant to that changing are generally those with said jobs simply because they may otherwise be unemployed. Should they be excused from adapting simply because it affects them personally and bollocks to everyone else? We used to mine coal and some people weren't happy when that ended for them. Does that mean we should have carried on indefinitely so they personally were happy?
The people who are blocking progress on the basis they'd personally be fucked otherwise ARE the problem.