Do you think that the increasing use of AI wil mean there will be less job vacancies?

Question: Do you think that the increasing use of AI wil mean there will be less job vacancies?
- Keywords:
  future,
  job
Asked by anon-379135 on 11 Jan 2024.
- Stefan Sarkadi answered on 11 Jan 2024:
  
  Increasing the use of AI is a double-edged sword. If the deployment of AI as workforce is not well regulated it may lead to less job vacancies. However, at the same time it could open new vacancies, as it happened during industrialisation. Most likely the nature of the jobs themselves will change. The OECD, the international governmental organisation that aims to stimulate economies, is currently prioritising this problem as there is great uncertainty around it. Perhaps it might be insightful to look at their reports – https://www.oecd.org/future-of-work/
- Gareth Hartwell answered on 11 Jan 2024:
  
  This is a good question. It is actually the same question which everybody was asking in the early days of the computer industry (we studied it in Computer Studies GCSE at school). They thought that computers would help us to do things more efficiently so fewer people would need to be employed (or the same number for fewer hours).
  
  This seems perfectly logical but what actually happened is that lots of new jobs were created and so the total number of jobs – or working hours – didn’t change much although the types of jobs changed.
  
  I expect that we will see something similar with AI. Even if it is the case that we need less work overall that isnt necessarily a problem if it is shared out in the form of fewer working hours and a better work-life balance. And generally when people have more leisure time they spend some of it on other things which employ people too.
- Rosemary J Thomas answered on 11 Jan 2024:
  
  AI can be used to do many kinds of jobs, like driving cars, writing articles, or grading papers. Sometimes, AI can do these jobs faster, cheaper, or better than humans. This means that some humans may lose their jobs because of AI, or they may have to learn new skills to do different jobs.
  
  Some people think that AI will reduce a lot of jobs in the future, and they are worried about this. They also say that AI may not create enough new jobs to replace the ones it takes away.
  
  Other people think that AI will not reduce jobs, but it will change them. They also say that AI will help humans do their jobs better, by giving them more information, feedback, and tools.
  
  So, AI may reduce some jobs, but it may also create new ones. We do not know for sure what will happen, because AI is still a new and developing technology.
- Andrew Maynard answered on 11 Jan 2024:
  
  I don’t think there’s evidence yet that there will be fewer jobs in the future — but the types of jobs that are available will certainly change.
- Carl Peter Robinson answered on 12 Jan 2024:
  
  My colleagues have some great answers here. I agree with the consensus that there will be new types of job brought about by the continual development and adoption of AI systems. I still see these AI systems as helpful tools that humans will use to help them complete tasks. These tasks will be part of jobs that already exist, but also as part of new jobs. What these new jobs are, we currently don’t know. I think there will be a lot more Human-Robot collaboration (where humans and robots work together in the same environment) with robots powered to perform tasks using AI models of their own. If there’s one thing humans are good at doing, it’s adapting to new situations and I see this as being another example of that.
  
  I also think it will lead to a whole rethink of the work and labour system, in terms of the number of hours we work, the amount of free time we get to pursue other activities (e.g.,leisure, hobbies, etc), and the way we are supported by social systems in terms of earning a living that then enables us to afford a house, utilities, food, and luxuries.