The Future of Work

 

As a transformative technology, artificial intelligence holds the power to reshape jobs and the work environment in profound ways. But, in a world where news and discussions about AI bring up visions of imminent job replacement, there are genuine concerns that AI will lead to further job losses. The fear is heightened by the AI industry’s preoccupation with benchmarking model performance and efficacy with human talent. From IBM’s Deep Blue to the Stanley autonomous car and DeepMind’s AlphaGo, AI companies have a history of evaluating and marketing their systems based on their ability to outperform humans in real-world demonstrations. While this approach is highly effective at attracting media attention, it has the dual effect of exacerbating and reinforcing people’s fear of AI from the viewpoint of job security.

This type of fear is not unique to AI either; from the cotton gin (which enabled the quick separation of seeds from cotton...