There’s no reason to fear AI taking your job, at least for now

Researchers at MIT examined whether artificial intelligence (AI) was more economical for 1,000 visually assisted tasks across 800 professions.

The era of artificial intelligence (AI) is accompanied by both excitement and the centuries-old dread that technology will replace humans in the workplace.

However, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study found that AI is now far too costly to replace people in the majority of employment.

The study examined the possibility of replacing artificial intelligence (AI) for human labor in US professions that used computer vision, including teaching, baking, and real estate appraisal.

The study found that AI could only reasonably replace 23% of workers’ earnings. Even with a 20% annual cost reduction, the researchers projected that it would still take decades for computer vision jobs to become profitable for businesses.

AI’s computer vision technology enables devices to extract data from digital and visual inputs. Computer vision was utilized in the study’s hypothetical bakery scenario to inspect ingredients for quality control. However, that task only makes up 6% of their work, and hiring a human to complete it would be less expensive than installing and running the technology.

Online surveys were utilized to collect data for the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab-funded study on about 1,000 visually aided tasks across 800 jobs. It was discovered that installing and maintaining AI systems frequently cost more money than hiring a human to complete the same jobs.

The fear that “machines will steal our jobs” is one that is commonly heard during times of fast technological advancement. The development of large language models has brought back this kind of worry, the researchers wrote in their 45-page paper, “Beyond AI Exposure.”

Because AI systems have high upfront costs, we find that only 23% of worker compensation that is “exposed” to AI computer vision would be cost-effective for businesses to automate.

Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November 2022, concerns about AI potentially leading to job losses in a number of industries, including finance and the arts, have grown. According to a Goldman Sachs analysis from 2023, generative AI may have an impact on 18% of work worldwide.

However, artificial general intelligence (AGI), a theoretical type of AI with intellect that can carry out tasks similar to humans, was said by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week at Davos that it “will change the world much less than we all think and it will change jobs much less than we all think.”