The Effect of AI in Our Economy

In 2018, only 3.2% of the US's workforce worked remotely which equates to 4.3 million people whereas, in the March 2020 poll of 375 executives, over 250 executives have more than 80% of their workforce working remotely. Due to COVID-19, between 32 and 50 million US jobs will be further assisted by AI to reduce the health risks posed by human interaction and maintain productivity. Medical roles such as anesthesiologists, nurses and health technologists will really benefit from AI as it will make them more resilient in any future pandemic. Innovation is required to implement AI in jobs where technology isn’t really used, such as vehicles inspector. However, jobs such as cashiers, servers and drivers where tasks can be fully automated are at risk because employers will seek to operate with less staff.

In order to prepare for future pandemics, AI development and AI innovation will have a much bigger emphasis. This might cause an increase in unemployment for jobs that can be fully automated but this will also mean, critical roles across health care will be risk-free and will be able to operate at an optimum level during future pandemics. A recession is likely to occur after this pandemic and it is also likely to cause a spike in labour-replacing automation, which means a lot of less-skilled worker’s jobs are at risk. These events are going to bring long-term structural changes to the labour force. During a pandemic, technology is more favoured as humans are a liability as they are susceptible to getting sick and spreading the disease to others. This is evident when you listen to the story about how a CEO had to close a factory after an employee became ill, which made them speed up the adoption of AI and machine learning over the next few years. AI can significantly improve the efficiency of a task, for example - you can use automated bots to help filter callers who need a live person from those who can be helped digitally.

Since there is an increasing acceptance of automation, people are becoming more comfortable shopping for food or electronics without the aid of another human, which is why the Mercer’s 2020 Global Talent Trends survey revealed 34% of employees expect their jobs to be replaced in three years.

Furthermore, in the coming years, 70% of the managerial workload will be taken care of by virtual personal assistants and chatbots. People who work in fields where automation is likely to need to realise there will be new rules and those new rules are the new normal. This means there should be a focus on trying to learn new skills that can’t be automated yet, such skills include problem-solving, system analysis, leadership, etc. Many companies from Shell to Amazon have already announced plans to re-skill large segments of their workforce.

References:

MIT Technology Review Insights. (2020, April 30). Covid-19 and the workforce: Critical workers, productivity, and the future of AI. Retrieved 3 June 2020, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/30/1000888/covid-19-and-the-workforce-critical-workers-productivity-and-the-future-of-ai/

Grossman, G. (2020). After coronavirus, AI could be central to our new normal.

Retrieved 29 May 2020, from https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/08/after-coronavirus-ai-could-be-central-to-our-new-normal/