Rise of the robots: Will AI be a job destroyer or creator?

People have a natural fear of technology putting them out of work. The word sabotage allegedly comes from French protesters who threw their wooden clogs — sabots — into machines to stop them working. And much of the second half of the 20th century was characterised by labour disputes in relation to the introduction of new technologies in manufacturing industries.

Many workers in the services and creative industries believed they were immune to such threats, but AI has changed all that. Robot process automation (RPA) and other AI-powered activities are replacing human activities in a whole range of areas, from call centres to accountancy practices; and, as the technology gets smarter, the number of roles that can be replaced increases.

However, there is widespread belief that the technology will mainly be used to augment human effort and will ultimately create more jobs than it replaces. “We’re still quite early in the fourth industrial revolution and the general consensus is that the same pattern will emerge that has been seen historically, whereby AI-powered automation will replace some functions, but will also create many new jobs opportunities,” says Justin Conry, director of strategy, PMO & transformation at Three Ireland and Three UK.

“The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Future of Jobs report predicted that an additional 97 million jobs would be created as humans, machines and algorithms work together, far outstripping the 85 million it forecast will be displaced,” Conry adds. “AI-powered automation isn’t just disrupting, but it is also creating new ways of working. In practice we have seen the creation of many new roles in Three Ireland in support of AI, ranging from developers to business analysts and RPA governance and control.”

Kyle Gribben, head of the digital services group at law firm Matheson, agrees. “The basic equation is predicated upon the premise that professional skills are more likely to be enhanced by AI than replaced by AI,” he says. “This is because whereas AI is excellent at recognising and distilling patterns inherent in certain inputs and thereafter arranging meaningful outputs, we still need professionals to set the context, stage the inputs, and bring the outputs to the next stage in the process. Within the legal industry AI has been adopted widely as a means to provide enhanced insight into various documents and other data points; lawyers will have access to more information and more accurate information than before, and this can only help them to advise their clients in a more effective manner.”

But that may be a case of wishful thinking, according to Small Firms Association deputy chair Geraldine Magnier, who is also co-founder of advanced analytics and AI specialist firm Idiro Analytics.

“Certain commentators hold this view because this was the case with many innovations in the past, such as the steam engine and the car,” she says. “However, they helped speed up physical processes that hitherto had been done with animal or human force. AI is in a different realm since it promises or threatens to surpass the human ability to think and be creative. AI may create more work, but one can’t take that as given. Additionally, given that advanced economies are suffering talent shortages and most also have declining populations, we may well be happy if AI doesn’t create more jobs.”

Regardless of whether it creates more jobs than it destroys, AI is certainly changing the way work is done — and for the better in many cases. “Within the legal sector we have seen some considerable advances in the use of AI technologies in recent years,” says Gribben. “This has not led to any reduction in the number of lawyers that we need to do the work; in fact, quite the opposite. The demand for lawyers has never been higher, and part of the reason for this is that AI has allowed us to carry out aspects of our work with increased speed whilst ensuring that there is no diminution in quality of output.”

And it also has the capacity to create new roles which do not exist yet. “Half a century ago, no one would have envisaged jobs such as web developers, data scientists, 5G mobile phone network engineers or application administrators,” Conry points out. “The creation of new jobs as a direct result of the emergence of new technologies is an absolute certainty, and we are already seeing this with AI, with new roles such as automation developers, automation analysts and process controllers.”

Magnier is also certain that new types of jobs will be created because of AI. “The most obvious one, and one due to become mainstream soon, is that of an AI auditor. Given the opaqueness of AI to most people, we will need specialist AI auditors who can interpret and understand how AI models work; in particular, we will need to be sure that AI is not discriminating against certain cohorts of our population such as by recommending that some people don’t get approved for mortgages.”