AI: "A Quiet Havoc Has Begun"

(Forbes illustration)

If your job is based on your dexterity with language, numbers, or symbols, artificial intelligence is coming for it now. [bold added]

Almost everyone is rattled by the speed of its development. The story is no longer “AI in coming decades will take a lot of jobs” or “AI will take jobs sooner than we think.” It is “AI is here and a quiet havoc has begun.”

...Last week Noam Scheiber in the New York Times reported economists just out of school are suddenly having trouble finding jobs. As recently at the 2023-24 academic year, said a member of the American Economic Association, the employment rate for economists shortly after earning a doctorate was 100%. Not now. Everyone’s scaling back, government is laying off, big firms have slowed hiring. Why? Uncertainty, tariffs and the possibility that artificial intelligence will replace their workers. Mr. Scheiber quotes labor economist Betsey Stevenson: “The advent of AI is . . . impacting the market for high-skilled labor.”

That’s only economists, not beloved in America, we probably have enough. Here’s another unbeloved group. This week Journal reporter Chip Cutter had a piece titled “AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’ ” If AI can crunch numbers, analyze data and deliver a slick PowerPoint deck in two seconds, what will the consulting firm do to survive? Rewire its business. Smaller, leaner teams; let AI build the PowerPoint. McKinsey’s global managing partner, Bob Sternfels, said that in the future the company will likely have one AI agent for every human employee. It’s already reduced head count.

...Accounting firms that employ 18 people will need only 14; law firms that employ 24 will need only 18 or 20. “When AI reaches into something like ‘wealth management,’ which advisory firm would you choose: one that had all of JPMorgan Chase’s massive AI infrastructure and expertise, or a ‘boutique’ firm that did not? The question is the answer.”

While every new technology has resulted in the loss of jobs in existing businesses, it has heretofore been true that capitalism has always created a greater number of jobs in new industries. But now, given that AI is able to dispense "PhD-level" advice, that faith in capitalism is wavering.

What jobs are likely to survive the AI onslaught?

[John] Ellis offers Microsoft’s list of 20 such professions. They include floor sanders and finishers, roofers, motorboat operators, massage therapists and pile-driver operators.

The above advice should be taken with a grain of salt, however. It was only a few years ago that journalists, some insultingly and some well-meaning, advised coal miners to "learn to code." Journalism and computer programming jobs are now also disappearing.

I've said it before: I'm glad we're retired.