Workers who have already been replaced by artificial intelligence

Until recently, Dean Meadowcroft was a copywriter in a small marketing department.

His assignments include writing press releases, social media posts and other content for his company.

But then, late last year, his company introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) system.

“At that moment, the idea was to work together using human copywriters to speed things up, essentially speed things up a little bit more,” he says.

Meadowcroft was less than impressed with the AI ​​work.

“It made everything sound flat, what we were all exactly the sameand that is why no one really stood out.”

The content also had to be reviewed by human staff to ensure it had not been sourced from elsewhere.

dismissed

But the AI it was fast.

What it took a human copywriter between 60 and 90 minutes to write, AI could do in 10 minutes or less.

About four months after the introduction of the AI, the four-person team joined Meadowcroft was fired.

Meadowcroft isn’t quite sure, but he’s pretty sure the AI ​​replaced them.

“I laughed at the possibility that AI could replace writers or influence my work until it did,” he said.

jobs at risk

The latest wave of AI came late last year when OpenAI released ChatGPT.

ChatGPT, powered by Microsoft, can provide human-like answers to all kinds of questions and within minutes too generate essays, speeches and even recipes.

Other tech giants also introduced their own systems: Google launched Bard in March.

And while not perfect, these systems are trained for it diving into the ocean of available data on the internet an amount of information that is impossible for even a team of people to digest.

This leaves many wondering what kinds of jobs might be at risk.

Earlier this year, a Goldman Sachs report said that may be AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million jobs full-time.

And that job losses would not fall equally across all levels of the economy.

According to the report, 46% of tasks in administrative professions and 44% in legal professions could be automated, but only 6% in construction and 4% in maintenance.

The report also notes that the introduction of AI could boost productivity and growth and create new jobs.

There is already some evidence of that.

The IKEA case

This month, IKEA said it has trained 8,500 employees working in its call centers as design consultants since 2021.

The furniture giant says 47% of customer calls are now handled by an AI called Billie.

although IKEA does not estimate that jobs will disappear as a result of the use of AIsuch developments worry many people.

A recent Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey, which surveyed 12,000 employees around the world, found that a third were concerned that AI replaces them at work, and frontline workers were more concerned than managers.

BCG’s Jessica Apotheker says this is partly due to a fear of the unknown.

“If you look at leaders and managers, over 80% of them use AI at least once a week. If you look at frontline workers, that number drops to 20%, so the lack of familiarity with the technology creates a lot more anxiety and worry about outcomes for them.”

But perhaps there is good reason to be concerned.

YouTube and AI

Last year, Alejandro made Graue for three months voiceover jobs for a popular YouTube channel.

It seemed like a promising job, An entire English YouTube channel had to be translated into Spanish.

Graue took a vacation at the end of the year confident that there would be work when he returned.

“I had that income to live on. I have two daughters, so I need the money,” he says.

But to his surprise, before he got back to work, the YouTube channel uploaded a new video in Spanish, one he hadn’t worked on.

“When I clicked on it, what I heard was not my voice, but a vote generated by AI, a vote in out very badly synchronized It was horrible. And I was like, what is this? Will I get a new partner on the channel or will this replace me?” he says.

A phone call to the studio where he worked confirmed the worst.

The client wanted to experiment with AI because it was cheaper and faster.

That experiment ended in failure.

Viewers complained about the quality of the voice-in out and eventually the channel removed videos featuring the AI-generated voice.

But Graue didn’t find that very reassuring.

Think technology will improve and marvel where will dubbing artists like him end up.

“If this happens at every job I have, what am I supposed to do? Should I buy a farm? Don’t know. What other job could you look for that will not be replaced in the future? It’s very complicated“, say.

Cooperation

But even if the AI ​​can’t replace you, chances are it will help you in some way.

After working independently for a few months, former copywriter Dean Meadowcroft took a new direction.

She now works for a counselor for employees, providing wellness and mental health advice to staff.

Working with AI is now part of your job.

“I think that is where the future of AI liesgiving quick access to human-driven content, rather than completely removing that factor,” he says.

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