AI Can Already Do the Work of 12% of America's Workforce, Researchers Find (msn.com) 59
An anonymous reader shared this report from CBS News:
Artificial intelligence can do the work currently performed by nearly 12% of America's workforce, according to a recentstudy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The researchers, relying on a metric called the "Iceberg Index" that measures a job's potential to be automated, conclude that AI already has the cognitive and technical capacity to handle a range of tasks in technology, finance, health care and professional services. The index simulated how more than 150 million U.S. workers across nearly 1,000 occupations interact and overlap with AI's abilities...
AI is also already doingsome of the entry-level jobsthat have historically been reserved for recent college graduates or relatively inexperienced workers, the report notes. "AI systems now generate more than a billion lines of code each day, prompting companies to restructure hiring pipelines and reduce demand for entry-level programmers," the researchers wrote. "These observable changes in technology occupations signal a broader reorganization of work that extends beyond software development."
"The study doesn't seek to shed light on how many workers AI may already have displaced or could supplant in the future," the article points out.
"To what extent such tools take over job functions performed by people depends on a number of factors, including individual businesses' strategy, societal acceptance and possible policy interventions, the researchers note."
AI is also already doingsome of the entry-level jobsthat have historically been reserved for recent college graduates or relatively inexperienced workers, the report notes. "AI systems now generate more than a billion lines of code each day, prompting companies to restructure hiring pipelines and reduce demand for entry-level programmers," the researchers wrote. "These observable changes in technology occupations signal a broader reorganization of work that extends beyond software development."
"The study doesn't seek to shed light on how many workers AI may already have displaced or could supplant in the future," the article points out.
"To what extent such tools take over job functions performed by people depends on a number of factors, including individual businesses' strategy, societal acceptance and possible policy interventions, the researchers note."
Are the researchers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Are the researchers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I want to know who these "researchers" are by name and where their funding comes from.
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>AI researchers who drew their conclusion from a simulation of the US labor market.
The Sims 4
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Perhaps not in the calculated percent but for example AlphaFold2 did about 100 000 000 years of scientist work by solving protein folding and AlphaEvolve improved several algorithms, which human scientists have failed to improve, so it is hard to say how much did it do.
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100 million years? Are those "results" usable in the real world, or are those "results" and their components made of unobtanium?
Improved algorithms? Wonderful... it improved the algorithm into being something that can only be run in version 1.2r, and won't run in version 1.2s or above.
Improving an algorithm shouldn't improve it in a way that limits it's usage to _only_ a computer using a specific version of a certain LLM-AI chatbot.
The big question... do those results and improved algorithms help humanity
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There are a ton of jobs which we could have automated 100 years ago but chose not to. Automats automated restaurants without the need to have waiters, prepackaged frozen food automated getting meals without cooking, yet we still have restaurants with waiters where you have to wait for someone to cook a whole meal for you - all very inefficiant, but its what we like.
I strongly suspect these kinds of jobs are always considered automatable in these studies when they were being conducted long before AI, but tha
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And we keep automating stuff that really shouldn't be. Classic example is customer support phone lines. I cannot remember the last time I used one of those and didn't have to ask for an operator. Believe it or not, most people call those lines because we need something to be done, rather than information that we almost certainly already have or can easily obtain via the website (which you keep advertising over and over again while we're on hold, and even before we ask the question, but has no options to con
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Interactive voice response systems are actually customer repulsion systems used to keep costs down. Same answer for various chat systems. Cutting labor costs is the hyperfocus of many organizations, to their great peril.
Another side of this is that let's say we took 12Million taxpayers off the roles. They won't need housing, so mortgage lenders, builders, etc, don't get any revenue for them (data centers *might*).
They don't need healthcare, or hospitalization, pharma, etc. They drive no cars, need no roads,
can it find dupes? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it can find dupes, editors will have a harder time justifying their roles
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
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Bots will make MORE dupes, this is the Slashdot Way.
Replace Slashdot Editors (Score:1)
Can we replace Slashdot editors with AI.
Zero intelligence to very limited intelligence would still be a significant improvement.
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Stealing other people's work is the entire basis of AI, they do what /. editors do by definition.
Dupe (Score:3)
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
If your replacing programmers with today's AI. (Score:4, Insightful)
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"âoeIf your replacing programmersâ¦â" -- Apparently, you could use some of that, too.
Re: If your replacing programmers with today's AI (Score:2)
That is just Slashdot bug. It cannot handle even common Unicode characters. Posts from phones frequently get those character substitutions.
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That is just Slashdot bug. It cannot handle even common Unicode characters. Posts from phones frequently get those character substitutions.
Just iPhones with smart quotes turned on. I assume iPads are the same, but macOS doesn't use them in text fields like this one.
Re: If your replacing programmers with today's AI (Score:2)
Still a site bug not user fault.
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The site could use a little refinement in the 'comment post modes'... like, a plain-text mode and an HTML & Unicode enabled mode, maybe the comment box could even be more like the one on Reddit... selectable in the comment box (without refreshing the page).
Didn't the site used to auto-refresh the homepage occasionally a while back?
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"Cuba may be next in line." I doubt it. Cuba has nothing el Bunko can monetize.
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Entry level jobs ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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"...where will experienced programmers come from ?"
Whatever's left. Experienced programmers will be the next jobs replaced. The question will be who's left to determine if the work is done well and who will care. It only matters that billionaires profit and everyone else suffers. What programming is even needed for that?
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I think we have to train students in "big pictture" thinking, and let AI work out the implementation details.
I don't think AI is yet ready to gather requirements, clarify ambiguities and fill holes, spot inconsistencies, and prioritize (often a political choice). End users often don't know precisely what they want, and are often warty of technical solutions and change. That takes a lot of ego stroking and feather unruffling. Can AI do that? Nah-uh. Not for quite a while yet, anyway.
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This is the end, my friend.
I was close to retirement anyway. There isn't going to be another generation of people with the skills I have outside of hobbyists. They're just not needed anymore.
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Similar experience to when those jobs were sent to India... Except now they won't have as many Einstein visas because experienced Indians won't exist to bring over... Plenty of cracks for people to sneak bye until optimization fills all those up.
What is already happening in accounting and was before AI-- was that entry level jobs became more complex and more difficult. Better trained and pre-educated workers are required to do the more difficult jobs. So you needed a degree to start on the job, a certificat
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So by the time you see them jump ship the AI plan is over.
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This question comes up quite a lot, in this context and in other contexts. We like it because it makes us feel like industry leadership is being irrational and short-sited, and boy will they get theirs!
In reality, this isn't as much of a conundrum as it seems. As it stands right now, AI can't actually eliminate entry level programmers, despite the marketing hype. It might reduce the raw number of entry level positions in the industry, but not down to zero. So, the problem doesn't actually exist yet.
But
In that case (Score:2)
We should expect to see 12% cut from openai and all its outsource contracts then, right?
Google AI (Score:3, Interesting)
https://imgur.com/a/ixGTMJW [imgur.com]
Google AI thinks sunrise where I live is around 3pm
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This might be GoatseGPT, don't click!
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The study actually says employment *rose* (Score:1)
Overall, employment for workers aged 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed sectors dropped 6% during the study period. By comparison, employment in those areas rose between 6% and 9% for older workers, according to the researchers.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a... [cbsnews.com]
Employment dropped 6% for workers aged 22-25, but increased 6-9% for workers aged 26-65. That sounds like a pretty significant *increase* in employment to me.
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Second I learned a trade and I've yet to see an AI (robot) run cables, pipes and fix switchboards.
But yes, the AI might be helpful designing the lay out.
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There are things where AI can't do yet. I remember fast food companies spending trillions to try to make an robot that can do what a short-order chef does, so the food prep area can be unmanned, with some dude coming by to dump off the food stuff. However, this is pretty much impossible, because of cleaning. Same reason why the old vending machines that would dispense sodas, hot chocolate, or chicken soup into a glass or cup are gone. You need people to mop the floors, and ensure nozzles are not fouled.
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On the other hand the guys who run the excavators at large job sites will be mostly gone, as will the dump truck drivers and most of the guys who pour cement, replaced with AI-controlled robots. China already has almost completely automated open pit mines (with all-electric equipment, eliminating cost and pollution of diesel as well) and much of the refining process. Conduit is being run on green-field construction sites, pulling cable through conduit has been automated for years, and loose cable runs are
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Crap new jobs. Pay continues to go down and we "subsidize" the wealthy in every other way as they steal from us in increasingly corrupt ways. But don't you dare mention the class war, our masters made that taboo! (class warfare existed since the darn of societies. As long as we have the fairness genes and whatever causes greed; the root of all evil, except in the USA where it's been good since the 80s!)
Eventually employers will realize they can't wait for AI jobs and will be forced to hire again; however, t
AI replacements (Score:5, Interesting)
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> but does the consumer get a better experience?
Who cares? It's a race to the bottom of the expense sheet. When the consumer has nowhere else to go (either price or everyone does the same) , the consumer experience doesn't matter.
I mean, have you seen windows 11?
Very incomplete analysis (Score:5, Informative)
The analysis claims to have covered the skills of 150 million workers in 1,000 jobs. I'd be willing to bet that the analysis didn't cover *every* skill required for even *one* of the jobs.
For example, take the job "receptionist." That's typically an entry-level job that requires skills like answering the phone, taking messages, greeting visitors, and so on. But did the analysis also cover the need for a receptionist to sometimes prevent a visitor from just walking into the offices without knowing their purpose? Or the need to know who to call when somebody shoves their way inside anyway? These are things a normal, uneducated human wouldn't have be trained to do, but AI would need to be told explicitly.
The point is, even the simplest, most entry level jobs include all kinds of *implied* skills that the researchers almost certainly did not include in their analysis. AI can do a *part* of many jobs, but that's not the same as saying that it dan *do* the job.
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Are there other things not in the job description; sure.
Receptionists still exist but they have been unnecessary for a very very long time. Doormen as well who are similar. Nice to have if you can afford to have them but could they be replaced with procedures and policies? yes. Direct phone calls. Directory at the door. Buzz to enter secure entry. A "welcome" sign. For a nice personal experience, it's a luxury some want to have. Again, if you can afford it and have not optimized out every expense that isn'
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The point wasn't about the receptionist role specifically, but about the myriad unwritten tasks that people do as part of their jobs, that this analysis didn't consider.
As for "squeezing out everything possible"--yes, there are companies like that, a lot of them. But a desire for more efficiency isn't in itself, evil. It's how aggressively a company pursues that goal, that can make it evil.
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Well said.
Most use cases of LLMs/GenAI are actually just process automation by another name. The pivot point of nearly all automation efforts is process control, especially in the handoffs between systems or between systems and humans. Because humans are so adept at handling exceptions, most automation projects I've seen deal with only the most common exceptions. Well-run projects think carefully about how to structure handoffs such that the exceptions don't eat up all the labor saved by automating the base
10% Unempolyment is depression -- AI Keeping Money (Score:2)
But makes the mistakes of (Score:2)
...24%
But not managers, right? (Score:2)
They're special.
Only 8 years and 12%? (Score:2)
Logically only 60 or so years remain before AI can take over 100% of jobs. Assuming that we're all replaceable cogs where every job and every worker are equivalent.
The other factor, a constant rate of growth in AI's capabilities, is probably less of a hand-wave than you might think because we're going to be constrained on the sizes of the models, computational power of the servers, and of course electricity to run it all. We'll probably see a very brief exponential growth of AI then a slow as physical const
Just 1 data point but.. (Score:2)
Speaking to a relative who was doing cold calls / cold emails as a BDR (business development representative). Manager said they will be able to get rid of 20 BDRs with AI at some point. This seems to be the most vulnerable kind of job.
12% (Score:2)
The work of 12% of the US workforce can also be done by a dead donkey.