According to a prospective study by Goldman Sachs, artificial intelligence could affect around two-thirds of current jobs. Some sectors will be more affected than others. Here are which ones.
Every day since its arrival, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been talking about its capabilities and those of other generative artificial intelligences. The chatbot can write as well as humans and sometimes even better. It can also do so in many languages.
Over the course of his experiences, he learns to perform new tasks on his own and he does it quickly and almost for free in the majority of cases. This is only the beginning, since currently the AI tends to lie, invent facts and suffers from many bugs. Artificial intelligence will inevitably progress and the question that now arises is whether it could replace certain professions, in particular those related to creation or communication.
As one might fear, this will indeed be the case according to a rapport just released by Goldman Sachs. According to labor data in the United States and Europe, two-thirds of current jobs could be affected by AI automation capabilities. Generative models could even completely replace up to a quarter of current jobs. Ultimately, this would affect around 300 million full-time jobs.
As for the sectors affected, the report predicts that the administrative and legal professions will be the most impacted with job cuts of up to 46% and 44% respectively. The more physical professions will be less affected with a drop of 6% for building professions and 4% for all maintenance. Maintenance and cleaning occupations are expected to be the most affected with up to 95% job cuts due to automated systems run by AIs. The same is true for repair services (85%), production (72%), transportation and movement of materials (65%). Food-related professions will also be affected by 50%.
Unemployed because of an AI!
Less affected, trades revolving around architecture and engineering will see their workforce reduced by 10%. The commerce and finance professions are doing well with 4% job cuts. More surprisingly, those related to arts, design, entertainment, sports and media will only be impacted by 3%. So much for the dark side.
But, more positively, these artificial intelligences should generate new jobs with higher productivity. On the other hand, the cost of this labor should be lower than today. Also according to the report, if AI were generalized, it could increase the annual growth of labor productivity. AI would then be able to increase annual global gross domestic product (GDP) by 7%. According to the report, this same figure of 7% should correspond to the number of American workers who will be laid off because of artificial intelligence. If the figures in this report are frightening, the study does not specify when this could happen.
