Recent predictions indicate a substantial threat to jobs from computerization and AI. Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne from Oxford University estimated that 47% of jobs in the US are at risk. Management consultancy McKinsey predicted that by 2025, productivity gains in "knowledge work" could account for 40% of current jobs in those areas. This alarming trend is impacting various sectors, from clerical to professional services, and extends beyond just blue-collar work.
Startups, such as one founded by Daniel Nadler and staffed with ex-Google engineers, are actively developing AI to automate tasks traditionally performed by junior researchers and analysts in the banking industry. These algorithms can assess how securities react to market-moving information, a job typically done by humans crunching numbers and filling spreadsheets. Nadler states, "We do it with machines," and aims to displace the hundreds of thousands of people employed in such capacities.
Even highly compensated professionals are not immune. In fields like law and medicine, machines are expected to provide "generally better answers" than humans who struggle to keep up with the latest knowledge. Companies like Fidelity Investments are investing heavily in new software projects, with 12,000 of its staff (3 out of every 10 workers) now in IT roles, spending nearly $1 billion annually on such initiatives. They are testing technologies like Warren and Quill to anticipate future changes in work.
While some optimists, like MIT management professor Tom Malone, believe new jobs will be created as old ones are destroyed, others, such as Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan, predict a "decimation" of jobs at the low end as machines take over manual tasks like digging ditches or directing traffic. The critical question for workers will be where the line is drawn between human and machine tasks, and whether enough higher-level jobs will materialize to compensate for those lost.
Companies like Narrative Science are already automating report writing based on financial data. Len Welter successfully used their technology, Quill, to generate 40 reports a day, making human writers "freak out" when they realized the system's capabilities. This highlights a trend where humans are removed from the equation, leading to an explosion in work volume that human switchboard operators could never have handled, just as telephone switches did in the past.
