Like many, I’m starting to place a good amount of energy into Artificial Intelligence. What is it? How does it work? When is the right time? And of course, how will AI impact people?
More jobs? Less jobs? No jobs? Hard to say, but I’ll be bold and make a prediction.
An initial curve where many jobs get leaned out, operationalized and essentially fall into a pattern of ‘get more done with less people’ followed by a much larger wave of more new jobs, but likely in areas that don’t exist quite yet. Driven in large part around the concept of “Generative Careers.”
I stumbled on the below chart courtesy of Goldman Sacks which seems to fortify my thinking here. The article in more focused on AI’s potential contribution to the overall economy (and yes, they are VERY bullish), but the chart really leapt out due to the occupation trajectories, the high percentage of change around the Health sector, and the massive growth in what they categorize as “Professionals.”
So I suppose we should dive in – Generative Careers. My thinking here is as we watch the tide roll in (the efficiency tide), followed by the much larger wave of job creation, many of these jobs will be in established domains, but for entirely new roles that will in large part be informed either directly or indirectly by the Generative AI wave…. thus the term Generative Careers.
Incidentally, some of the efficiency gains will also likely get offset due to increased job safety considerations (yes, AI should make people safer) which means people can have their jobs for longer, along with some career longevity improvements being afforded to some of the most unsafe jobs no longer being done by people, and then yes, coming back to that “Health” comment alluded to above, not only will health get disrupted in terms of the jobs available, but the quality of the product of health should also see some significant improvements meaning that yes, people will be able to work longer (you can argue about if that is net positive or net negative…).
And yes, we can deliver a similar treatment to every category above, and even can make convincing arguments for new categories, but when it comes to Generative Careers, I do see that trend of “Professionals” continuing to be the one most impacted, and yes, potentially most likely to see the biggest ongoing growth.
Thumbnail Courtesy of https://deepai.org/machine-learning-model/cyberpunk-generator