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AI to hit 40% of jobs and worsen inequality, IMF says


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Posted

Artificial intelligence is set to affect nearly 40% of all jobs, according to a new analysisby the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

IMF's managing director Kristalina Georgieva says "in most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality".

Ms Georgieva adds that policymakers should address the "troubling trend" to "prevent the technology from further stoking social tensions".

The proliferation of AI has put its benefits and risks under the spotlight.

The IMF said AI is likely to affect a greater proportion of jobs - put at around 60% - in advanced economies. In half of these instances, workers can expect to benefit from the integration of AI, which will enhance their productivity.

In other instances, AI will have the ability to perform key tasks that are currently executed by humans. This could lower demand for labour, affecting wages and even eradicating jobs.

Meanwhile, the IMF projects that the technology will affect just 26% of jobs in low-income countries.

It echoes a report from Goldman Sachs in 2023, which estimated AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs - but said there may also be new jobs alongside a boom in productivity.

Ms Georgieva said "many of these countries don't have the infrastructure or skilled workforces to harness the benefits of AI, raising the risk that over time the technology could worsen inequality among nations".

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More generally, higher-income and younger workers may see a disproportionate increase in their wages after adopting AI.

Lower-income and older workers could fall behind, the IMF believes. 

"It is crucial for countries to establish comprehensive social safety nets and offer retraining programmes for vulnerable workers," Ms Georgieva said. "In doing so, we can make the AI transition more inclusive, protecting livelihoods and curbing inequality."

The IMF analysis comes as global business and political leaders gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

AI is a topic of discussion, following the surge in popularity of applications like ChatGPT.

The technology is facing increased regulation around the world. Last month, European Union officials reached a provisional deal on the world's first comprehensive laws to regulate the use of AI. 

China has introduced some of the world's first national regulations on AI, which include rules concerning how algorithms can be developed and deployed. 

In October, President Biden signed an executive order compelling developers to share safety results relating to AI with the US government.

The following month the UK hosted an AI Safety Summit, at which at a declaration on the safe development of the technology was signed by multiple countries.
 

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67977967

 

Posted (edited)

We’re going to have a huge pendulum swing that disproportionately affects society in a negative way as AI is initially implemented into the workforce, but then it will counterbalance with a huge positive swing in my opinion. As we pass off labor, service, and research to machines humans will be free to pursue the arts. I just hope our leadership is smart enough to approve universal basic income because that’s where humanity needs to land. Machines doing labor and humans enjoying the freedom that comes with that.

 

 

Edited by PoisonedIvy
  • Like 1
Posted

AI is like a wild horse right now that just needs to be tamed with regulations. I really don't think it's some cataclysmic event like the doomers are obsessed with for some reason.

Posted

I think just like with previous revolutions jobs will change and new ones will be created and people will have to learn how to adapt or they will be left behind. 

  • Like 6
Posted
2 minutes ago, Digitalism said:

I think just like with previous revolutions jobs will change and new ones will be created and people will have to learn how to adapt or they will be left behind. 

Technology is changing too rapidly for most people to adapt though. 

Posted
17 minutes ago, PoisonedIvy said:

We’re going to have a huge pendulum swing that disproportionately affects society in a negative way as AI is initially implemented into the workforce, but then it will counterbalance with a huge positive swing in my opinion. As we pass off labor, service, and research to machines humans will be free to pursue the arts. I just hope our leadership is smart enough to approve universal basic income because that’s where humanity needs to land. Machines doing labor and humans enjoying the freedom that comes with that.

 

 

What makes you think AI won’t be used in fields related to the arts as well? How does giving the working class leisure time benefit the ruling class? The ruling class wants us too distracted and busy trying to stay afloat to protest or demand any changes. AI will be used to exploit workers. 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 3
Posted
8 minutes ago, Digitalism said:

I think just like with previous revolutions jobs will change and new ones will be created and people will have to learn how to adapt or they will be left behind. 

This.

  • ATRL Moderator
Posted

AI cannot wholly replace humans. They operate efficiently in a subset of tasks that still requires human intervention most of the time. It’s a tool, like the internet and other innovations prior, that will simply change the landscape of labour and professions.

 

A lot of fear surrounding AI is a lack of understanding of what it is necessarily and its capabilities. 99% of people, including a small number of software engineers I have met and work with, do not know what an artificial intelligence is if we were to distill it to a physical thing. LLMs such as GPT have been made highly scalable and publicly accessible in recent times so people are able to face these technologies and use them in daily life. However, to use and automate these at scale requires expertise (new jobs ready to be fulfilled by the massive surplus of tech labour available now) and they are very, very expensive to both interact with and host. There are many limitations to what these models can do and they won’t necessarily be eliminating job availability on a large scale. Especially not physical labour.

  • Like 4
Posted

I said this was gonna happen last winter and people on this site were calling me crazy:coffee:

Posted

Who would’ve guessed :penguin:  capitalistic hellhole continues

Posted
43 minutes ago, GraceRandolph said:

What makes you think AI won’t be used in fields related to the arts as well? How does giving the working class leisure time benefit the ruling class? The ruling class wants us too distracted and busy trying to stay afloat to protest or demand any changes. AI will be used to exploit workers. 

People can pursue artistic endeavors -without- the need to monetize their hobbies like they currently do. I wanna believe the ruling class is leading us to a plateau wherein there will no longer be a need for division once we have the components for a semi-utopian society but that’s my optimism talking, I know true utopia is impossible.

Posted
36 minutes ago, PoisonedIvy said:

As we pass off labor, service, and research to machines humans will be free to pursue the arts.

AI is also taking over in the art sector, specifically in the area of Voice Acting. SAG-AFTRA did their strike for screen actors and completely threw VAs under the bus. Visual art is also slowly getting there, and by the time AI takes over almost half of the workforce, the issues it's facing now with producing realistic fingers (among other things) will be a thing of the past.

 

1 hour ago, PoisonedIvy said:

I just hope our leadership is smart enough to approve universal basic income

Fat chance of that. Even liberals ridiculed Andrew Yang for suggesting it, and he had the most realistic vision of what the likely outcome of an AI-focused world would be like. The disdain people have with the idea that people can get by with "doing nothing" is extremely heavy. In the neoliberal worldview, if you're getting booted out of the workforce by AI, it's your fault for not making better choices and you deserve to be unemployed and homeless.

  • Like 2
Posted

I'm just glad I at least got to experience the world before this

AI definitely will get into the wrong hands and will cause horrible consequences one day

Posted
1 hour ago, Gorjesspazze9 said:

I said this was gonna happen last winter and people on this site were calling me crazy:coffee:

We do that every season tho 

Posted

I see AI as a scapegoat and the backlash emblematic of the real problem. The real problem is that corporations/capitalists wield such power over the lives of workers that they are vulnerable to decisions they have no control over. The fears people have are real and they are founded because look how poorly these corporations treat them already. They exploit people to maximize profits, they retaliate against people that question them or demand better for their lives, and they discipline people with threats of poverty. Why would they be above outsourcing labor even further to cut costs? This is why the working class needs to strike, unionize, and organize collectively in a labor struggle, as that is the only way they can ever have the autonomy they want. :cm:

  • Like 1
Posted

We need universal basic income now :rip:

Posted

Yea AI still can't make a pizza from scratch or serve people. Good luck with that!

  • ATRL Moderator
Posted
4 hours ago, Juanny said:

AI cannot wholly replace humans. They operate efficiently in a subset of tasks that still requires human intervention most of the time. It’s a tool, like the internet and other innovations prior, that will simply change the landscape of labour and professions.

 

A lot of fear surrounding AI is a lack of understanding of what it is necessarily and its capabilities. 99% of people, including a small number of software engineers I have met and work with, do not know what an artificial intelligence is if we were to distill it to a physical thing. LLMs such as GPT have been made highly scalable and publicly accessible in recent times so people are able to face these technologies and use them in daily life. However, to use and automate these at scale requires expertise (new jobs ready to be fulfilled by the massive surplus of tech labour available now) and they are very, very expensive to both interact with and host. There are many limitations to what these models can do and they won’t necessarily be eliminating job availability on a large scale. Especially not physical labour.

This. Language models, like ChatGPT, are not “intelligent” and not capable of replacing the vast majority of human work. I think so much of the doomsplaining about it is centered around a misunderstanding as to what these technologies even do. There are very real concerns and fears about AI regarding how their ability to generate false, but seemingly real and authentic, content is going to harm public trust. But, they’re not going to automate the workforce away. 
 

This is not to say that some fields are not at risk of having AI replace workers. We’re seeing allegations of AI being used in lieu of voice actors or being used in film and television instead of paying actors. That’s a real problem and challenge—especially because of people effectively losing the ability to lose ownership of their likeness.

  • Like 1
Posted
6 hours ago, PoisonedIvy said:

As we pass off labor, service, and research to machines humans will be free to pursue the arts.

so the cashiers at Walmart and McDonalds who are being replaced by AI will be free to pursue the arts? lol.  I don't think the vast majority of jobs lost to AI will be from people who have too much going for them beyond the typical 9-5, and go home and get drunk mentality.  

Posted
Just now, spree said:

so the cashiers at Walmart and McDonalds who are being replaced by AI will be free to pursue the arts? lol.  I don't think the vast majority of jobs lost to AI will be from people who have too much going for them beyond the typical 9-5, and go home and get drunk mentality.  

I’ve already admitted I’m being idealistic and the reality will be a lot more grim than I initially let on :gaycat6: But yes in a perfect world laborers would be free to pursue passions and not have to worry about housing or food :chick3: 

Posted

only way to stop this is to k*ll all the billionaires making these decisions for us :heart:

  • Thanks 1
Posted
15 hours ago, spree said:

so the cashiers at Walmart and McDonalds who are being replaced by AI will be free to pursue the arts? lol.  I don't think the vast majority of jobs lost to AI will be from people who have too much going for them beyond the typical 9-5, and go home and get drunk mentality.  

AI will impact 40% of the job market so way more than just cashiers. 

Posted
16 hours ago, spree said:

so the cashiers at Walmart and McDonalds who are being replaced by AI will be free to pursue the arts? lol.  I don't think the vast majority of jobs lost to AI will be from people who have too much going for them beyond the typical 9-5, and go home and get drunk mentality.  

that's a very classist and judgmental thing to say. cashiers are people too and have lives - but the point is that what they do in their free time when they don't have to perform labour is ultimately their business. 

 

the problem with poverty and low-paid jobs is really not the 'mentality'. 

Posted (edited)

AI is amazing but the culture of capitalism and abuse damages everything.
Education. Health. This world will keep burning if we dont do something about this
People blame AI when we should blame all the corporations-AI Tech Heads who dont have any moral principles
Laws must be enacted to fight against unemployment.
That universal income thing will never be a reality. The billionaries dont care about the poor. Theyre evil
In ourselves is the future of the world. We need to fund lawyers-laws and fight now or thousands of millions will go to the streets

Edited by AvadaKedavra
Posted (edited)
On 1/15/2024 at 4:27 PM, PoisonedIvy said:

We’re going to have a huge pendulum swing that disproportionately affects society in a negative way as AI is initially implemented into the workforce, but then it will counterbalance with a huge positive swing in my opinion. As we pass off labor, service, and research to machines humans will be free to pursue the arts. I just hope our leadership is smart enough to approve universal basic income because that’s where humanity needs to land. Machines doing labor and humans enjoying the freedom that comes with that.

 

 

It’s not about leadership being smart. They’re very smart. It’s about them being empathetic and concerned with humanity’s well-being, which they aren’t. They see AI as a means to make more money as fast as possible without having to pay someone to do it. This isn’t good for anybody, especially low income individuals. 

Edited by CottageHore
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