New analysis has outlined the four factors that make white-collar employees most susceptible to workforce disruptions by artificial intelligence. Spoiler alert: it isn’t pretty.
The analysis comes in the wake of a landmark report released by US artificial intelligence company Anthropic last week. It looked into which jobs are most at risk to change as a result of AI, and the findings made waves across almost all white-collar business sectors.
University of Sydney business school professor Clinton Free quickly got wind of the paper, telling the Australian Financial Review that the findings could signal a white-collar “wipeout” where more than 8.5 million jobs across Australia could be automated, augmented or changed by AI if current predictions are proven true.
The three jobs most impacted by AI, according to Anthropic, are computer programmers, customer services reps, and data entry keyers, but a whole host of other white-collar professions — including roles in law, finance, healthcare and media — will be disrupted in some way amid the ongoing advancement of AI.
Unlike past waves of technological advancement, which mostly hit blue-collar workers, AI stands to dramatically impact those with office and desk jobs, which is where the factors that make you most susceptible to AI-driven disruption come in.
Free took the Antropic report and mapped it against Australian job classifications, finding four key characteristics that are the riskiest when it comes to your job being either completely automated or just augmented in some way.
1. You are well educated or a high-earner
AI being adept at knowledge-based tasks, including complex, text-heavy, and data-driven work, isn’t great news for those who spent years being educated to specialise in those very same jobs for work.
That means, according to the report, that having a bachelor’s degree actually means you are three times more likely to be in a role at risk of AI disruption. A more advanced degree makes it four times more likely.
“We have in recent decades paid a premium for cognitive work over manual labour and this is the first time that the most exposed groups have been cognitive over manual labour,” Free told the Australian Financial Review.
With increased specialisation comes a higher salary, which is why high-earners are also vulnerable to the AI wipeout. Basically, AI’s status as all-knowing means it’s coming for the (usually higher-paying) gigs where specialised knowledge is king.
Maybe I should’ve taken my dad’s advice and become a carpenter — ChatGPT could never build a chair.
2. You are a woman
As if the workforce wasn’t already tougher for women, the Anthropic report outlines how workers in the most exposed occupations are 16 per cent more likely to be female.
In Australia, Free says much of this can be explained by the fact that women outnumber men at university graduations, meaning they’ll likely have the degrees or jobs most at risk of AI disruption.
Adding to that concern, research shows women are slower and more cautious about how they use AI.
3. You work in these jobs
Automation, meaning the replacement of jobs or tasks through tech like AI, is most likely to occur in four key industries, according to the report.
The highest-risk area for AI disruption is computing and math (96 per cent exposure to AI), followed by business and finance (94 per cent), office and administration (96 per cent), management (92 per cent) and law (88 per cent).
That’s right, even the managers and lawyers aren’t spared from the wipeout. Arts and media follows close behind those gigs (FML), while food service and hospitality is at the lower end with just 12 per cent exposure to AI disruption.
4. You work remotely
The report also indicated that jobs done remotely are significantly more exposed to AI augmentation than those where you rock up IRL. This also makes sense given that it seems hellbent on coming for white-collar workers.
“AI can grade homework but not manage a classroom, for example, so teachers are considered less exposed than workers whose entire job can be performed remotely,” the report said.
All of this might read like a doomsday message, but a few experts reckon we don’t need to raise the alarm just yet. The general sentiment seems to be that AI is a tool, not a replacement, for white-collar workers, and that its advancement will actually create more jobs in the future.
“Every white-collar job is a basket of tasks,” James Cameron, a partner at venture capital firm Airtree told AFN. “But only some of those tasks are automatable.”
Where that leaves us moving forward is about as confusing as a string of AI code. But if the wipeout does hit, at least we’ll all be in it together! Right?!
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Lead images: Getty and NBC
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