Jobs that Will Survive the Artificial Intelligence Boom: Study
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), highlighted by the release of ChatGPT, have fuelled excitement as well as concerns about the role of human workers in the future. While previous waves of technological transformation like automation mainly affected less educated workers performing routine and manual tasks, a broader segment of the labour force could potentially be affected in an era when highly sophisticated algorithms that can model language and other AI applications increasingly excel at performing non-routine and cognitive tasks typically performed by highly educated workers.
A new study by Statistics Canada sheds light on this issue. It provides experimental estimates of potential AI occupational exposure faced by different groups of Canadian workers based on the tasks they perform.
The new federal research distinguishes three types of workers: those whose jobs are highly exposed to AI and who might benefit from it because of a high degree of complementarity between their tasks and AI capabilities; those whose jobs are highly exposed to AI and whose tasks might be replaced by AI; and those whose jobs are not highly exposed to AI.
The study found that, in May 2021, 29 per cent of Canadian workers held jobs highly exposed to and highly complementary with AI. Meanwhile, 31 per cent were in high exposure and low complementarity jobs. The remaining 40 per cent were in jobs not highly exposed to AI.
The AI occupational exposure distribution was similar in May 2016.
The study also shows AI might be more likely to transform the jobs of highly educated workers than those of their less educated counterparts. This is contrary to prior waves of technological transformation, which mainly affected less educated workers.
For instance, the study estimates that, in May 2021, 50 per cent of workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher held jobs highly exposed to and highly complementary with AI. This is almost four times the rate of 13 per cent observed for workers with a high school diploma or less. Workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher (36 per cent) also held proportionately more jobs that were highly exposed to AI and whose tasks might be replaced by AI than workers with a high school diploma or less (25 per cent).
In sum, 86 per cent of highly educated workers held jobs highly exposed to AI in May 2021, compared with 38 per cent of their less educated counterparts.
It is important to note these experimental estimates of AI occupational exposure are based on a limited number of AI applications and how they might interact with some human abilities. The set of tasks that AI might be able to perform fully unsupervised might grow in the future with technological advancement. As such, the applicability of the index used in this study might decrease over time.
As well, there are several reasons why employers may not immediately replace humans with AI, even if it is technologically feasible to do so. These reasons include financial, legal and institutional factors. Consequently, relatively higher occupational exposure to AI does not necessarily imply a higher risk of job loss.