Artificial intelligence (AI) is proving to be one of the most transformative technologies in human history. Just like internet, AI is a technology wave that will make significant changes to established ways of doing things. And reflection of such transformation is always evident. From content writing to software coding; from customer service to process automation; AI-powered platforms are bringing in significant changes to multiple fields and sectors. As an outcome, several jobs are becoming redundant. According to a 2023 study by published by a team of researchers from OpenAI- OpenResearch, and the University of Pennsylvania, several jobs would face the heat of AI-powered automation.

Jobs like interpreters and translators; survey researchers; poets, lyricists and creative writers; animal scientists, public relations specialists; writers and authors; mathematicians; tax preparers; journalists; financial quantitative analysts; and web and digital interface designers are found out to be most vulnerable. Even jobs like data scientists are also listed in the report as a job, which will get impacted. Three years into the survey, many of its predictions have proved true. Media industry has been disrupted badly across the world as generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity handle most of the writing work and thereby have reduced demand for writers, editors and related jobs.

In the technology industry, demand for coders is going down as AI tools write most of the codes. Similarly, entry level jobs- L1& L2 in the software services industry are getting reduced as the tasks get automated. In the era of Agentic AI, many processes across sectors like financial services, manufacturing, retail and others are being automated. Now, the question comes that is an apocalyptic like situation in the job market going to happen? The reality is AI is considered as a black box, whose full-scale impact is not known to anybody. Recently, GenAI expert Ethan Mollick said, “I can tell you that no one knows anything.” According to Mollick, nobody knows what the future holds in the job market.

This seems to a realistic assessment. For instance, after initial euphoria over using novel platforms like ChatGPT, people are finding out that its reliability can’t be foolproof. Moreover, while consumers are adopting AI at a faster pace, enterprises are making cautious moves. Firstly, large scale job dislocations will not happen. This has already been seen in the last three years. Job shift will happen, albeit gradually. Secondly, after the initial enthusiasm fades, many established methods are likely to come back.

During Covid, many predictions and projections were done about edtech, remote working and metaverse among others. However, they were found wrong in the post-pandemic period. So, all established ways of doing things are not going to be replaced by AI-powered platforms for sure. Thirdly, job dislocation is a sensitive issue worldwide. Mass layoffs by technology firms in the US have become a political issue.

In a developing economy like India, no government can afford serious dislocation of jobs, which has the potential of creating a civil unrest. Last but not the least, AI has already been creating new jobs across sectors. In the tech-driven world, developers’ jobs may be getting redundant in some areas but the demand for AI, data, ML, and related engineering professionals is on the rise. All in all, the world will see AI doing a tango with humans and not a case of AI replacing humans in the long-run.