It’s been just over a year since artificial intelligence became a mainstream conversation topic with the launch of systems such as ChatGPT. What had felt like the dystopian stuff of sci-fi to most was suddenly an everyday reality as generative tools made it possible for anyone to play around with the tech. It rapidly made its way into offices, and many headlines purported a profound impact on the future of work.
Goldman Sachs has suggested that generative AI could impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide by 2030. While recent research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) predicted that as many as eight million UK jobs could be lost to AI in what it called the “worst case scenario” in the future. It comes after Meta Chief Mark Zuckerberg rocked the internet by announcing that his company would attempt to build an ‘AGI system’ which could theoretically carry out tasks on a par with human levels of intelligence — and make it freely available to the public. As well as igniting fears over ethics in politicians and experts, it led many to ask: is AI coming for my job?
