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How will automation and AI reshape the workforce?

As automation and AI technologies rapidly advance, concerns about their impact on jobs continue to grow. Here, Jonathan Cowey-Small explores how AI is reshaping the workforce and highlights the importance of a balanced approach to its integration.

The Guardian recently published an article titled ‘AI Apocalypse Could Take Away 8 Million UK Jobs’, which, while sounding extreme, raises important points. The Institute for Public Policy Research has recently outlined that the demographics most at risk of job loss from AI are women, younger workers, and those in lower-paid jobs.

Hesitation to allow AI into the workplace is totally understandable. It’s a relatively new technology growing at an unimaginable rate, and only the most tech-savvy can keep up. 

While these concerns are valid, we often overlook the fact that AI already plays a significant role in our daily lives.

Our good friend Alexa, who we allow into our homes to turn on our appliances and assist with the weekly shop, is powered by AI. Our Netflix suggestions, Amazon purchase add-ons, and Facebook friend recommendations are all driven by AI.

We often follow these AI-generated prompts and end up spending more money on things we didn’t know we needed - until our generous digital friend suggested we do so. These are examples of how AI has quietly integrated itself into tasks without causing alarm, suggesting that AI, if managed correctly, can enhance our lives rather than disrupt them.

In the workplace, AI has the potential to be a valuable tool for increasing productivity. By taking over mundane, repetitive tasks, it can allow employees to focus on more meaningful work. This approach, known as ‘augmentation,’ sees AI as a support system for workers rather than a replacement.

However, the fear of AI-induced job loss comes from a different approach -‘displacement’. Here, AI takes over roles without creating additional opportunities, resulting in layoffs without any productivity gains.

Public Policy Research suggests that an augmented approach could prevent job losses while boosting GDP by 13 per cent. However, for this to happen, a collaborative effort between tech companies, governments, and employers is needed.

Governments can play a key role by ring-fencing protecting certain job roles that could be replaced by AI, protecting them to ensure employment rates and economic growth are maintained. It’s the government’s responsibility to ensure that AI is implemented in a way that augments workers’ responsibilities rather than replacing them entirely. Tax incentives for companies that implement AI with an augmentation approach will encourage employers to integrate AI without mass redundancies.

Employers, too, have a responsibility to help their workforce adapt to the changing landscape. By providing upskilling opportunities in areas like emotional and creative intelligence - skills that AI cannot easily replicate - they can help employees stay relevant in an AI-driven world. However, prioritising this over profit can be challenging for many businesses.

It’s not clear how the next wave of AI integration will play out across the global workforce. But what we do know right now is that AI can be an incredibly beneficial tool to assist humans globally, as long as there is structure and consideration for all.

The key lies in its thoughtful and responsible implementation.

LinkedIn: Jonathan Small

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Bdaily Publishing .