{"id":4188,"date":"2023-02-25T14:13:03","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T13:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thorex.site\/?post_type=news&p=4188"},"modified":"2025-02-24T13:40:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T12:40:32","slug":"ai-could-replace-equivalent-of-300-million-jobs-report","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/thorex.site\/en\/news\/ai-could-replace-equivalent-of-300-million-jobs-report\/","title":{"rendered":"AI could replace equivalent of 300 million jobs – report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Artificial intelligence (AI) could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs, a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs says.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could replace a quarter of work tasks in the US and Europe but may also mean new jobs and a productivity boom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it could eventually increase the total annual value of goods and services produced globally by 7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generative AI, able to create content indistinguishable from human work, is “a major advancement”, the report says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employment prospects<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The government is keen to promote investment in AI in the UK, which it says<\/a> will “ultimately drive productivity across the economy”, and has tried to reassure the public about its impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We want to make sure that AI is complementing the way we work in the UK, not disrupting it – making our jobs better, rather than taking them away,” Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan told<\/a> the Sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report notes AI’s impact will vary across different sectors – 46% of tasks in administrative and 44% in legal professions could be automated but only 6% in construction 4% in maintenance, it says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBC News has previously reported some artists’ concerns<\/a> AI image generators could harm their employment prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Lower wages’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“The only thing I am sure of is that there is no way of knowing how many jobs will be replaced by generative AI,” Carl Benedikt Frey, future of-work director at the Oxford Martin School, Oxford University, told BBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What ChatGPT does, for example, is allow more people with average writing skills to produce essays and articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Journalists will therefore face more competition, which would drive down wages, unless we see a very significant increase in the demand for such work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Consider the introduction of GPS technology and platforms like Uber. Suddenly, knowing all the streets in London had much less value – and so incumbent drivers experienced large wage cuts in response, of around 10% according to our research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The result was lower wages, not fewer drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Over the next few years, generative AI is likely to have similar effects on a broader set of creative tasks”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Pinch of salt’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to research cited by the report, 60% of workers are in occupations that did not exist in 1940.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But other research suggests technological change since the 1980s has displaced workers faster than it has created jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if generative AI is like previous information-technology advances, the report concludes, it could reduce employment in the near term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-term impact of AI, however, was highly uncertain, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank Torsten Bell told BBC News, “so all firm predictions should be taken with a very large pinch of salt”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We do not know how the technology will evolve or how firms will integrate it into how they work,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That’s not to say that AI won’t disrupt the way we work – but we should focus too on the potential living-standards gains from higher-productivity work and cheaper-to-run services, as well as the risk of falling behind if other firms and economies better adapt to technological change.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4696,"template":"","class_list":["post-4188","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorex.site\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/4188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorex.site\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorex.site\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorex.site\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorex.site\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}