What does AI Mean for the Future of Work?

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that I believe the Information Age ended on March 14, 2023 with the launch of GPT-4, and we are now entering a new era which will be known as either the “AI/Robotics Age,” the “Knowledge Age,” or the “Machine Age.” I believe AI will profoundly change the way we work, and the time to pay attention to it is now. Earlier this week, several prominent public and business leaders, many of them senior in the field of AI, signed an open letter calling for a 6 month moratorium on the further development of AI technologies more advanced than GPT-4. This was in response to what they see as massive potential disruption to the global workforce, information platforms (which are already starting to be infiltrated by AI bots), and a lack of time to prepare society for what is coming. It’s worth noting that some researchers have articulated even more existential concerns , worried about our eventual progression into a Artificial General Intelligence, where future AIs may have intelligence and capabilities far beyond what humans are capable of or even understand and use it to eventually destroy humanity.

I will not list all of the occupations which I believe will be impacted by AI. Frankly, it would be too long and my goal in writing this is not to call out any specific profession. I’ve already shared the example of what is happening to programmers, but know that these dynamics will extend far beyond that. Few people want to think of their own hard work and analysis as something which could be automated by AI, so instead, ask yourself: how much of your own work is sending an e-mail or a chat message to someone else, asking them to do something for you or to provide you with some piece of information? Now consider, how much of their work could be done by an AI, trained on your organization’s internal data and knowledge from reputable sites on the Internet, with the ability to engage socially and economically on your behalf on the Internet? Probably a lot more than most might think.