Automation thrashes the economy through job losses

AI-powered job automation is a pressing concern as the technology is adopted in industries like marketing, manufacturing and healthcare. By 2030, tasks that account for up to 30 percent of hours currently being worked in the U.S. economy could be automated — with Black and Hispanic employees left especially vulnerable to the change — according to McKinsey. Goldman Sachs even states 300 million full-time jobs could be lost to AI automation.

“The reason we have a low unemployment rate, which doesn’t actually capture people that aren’t looking for work, is largely that lower-wage service sector jobs have been pretty robustly created by this economy,” futurist Martin Ford told Built In. With AI on the rise, though, “I don’t think that’s going to continue.”

As AI robots become smarter and more dexterous, the same tasks will require fewer humans. And while AI is estimated to create 97 million new jobs by 2025, many employees won’t have the skills needed for these technical roles and could get left behind if companies don’t upskill their workforces.

“If you’re flipping burgers at McDonald’s and more automation comes in, is one of these new jobs going to be a good match for you?” Ford said. “Or is it likely that the new job requires lots of education or training or maybe even intrinsic talents — really strong interpersonal skills or creativity — that you might not have? Because those are the things that, at least so far, computers are not very good at.”

Even professions that require graduate degrees and additional post-college training aren’t immune to AI displacement.

As technology strategist Chris Messina has pointed out, fields like law and accounting are primed for an AI takeover. In fact, Messina said, some of them may well be decimated. AI already is having a significant impact on medicine. Law and accounting are next, Messina said, the former being poised for “a massive shakeup.”

“Think about the complexity of contracts, and really diving in and understanding what it takes to create a perfect deal structure,” he said in regards to the legal field. “It’s a lot of attorneys reading through a lot of information — hundreds or thousands of pages of data and documents. It’s really easy to miss things. So AI that has the ability to comb through and comprehensively deliver the best possible contract for the outcome you’re trying to achieve is probably going to replace a lot of corporate attorneys.”