Remember when the idea of robots taking over the world was just an innocent punchline used in movies and cartoons? Society used to collectively laugh it off, thinking it was no more than a futuristic delusion. But now, with AI advancing and stepping into more and more jobs, it is no longer just a silly ‘what if’ scenario. These tech robots are drastically reshaping industries and permanently changing the way we work at a relentless rate.
Artificial intelligence was originally created to analyze and enter data, create content and ultimately help humanity in a quick and efficient manner. While many expected it to be no more than an accessible tool to utilize here and there, the software’s rapid development has given it a designated spot in our daily lives. As AI’s abilities and influence expand relentlessly, there is a growing concern that human jobs are on the line.
With the widespread use of AI products like ChatGPT, people have naturally become less and less motivated to do anything by themselves. Instead, they immediately turn to ask an AI generator to do the work for them. With the combination of society’s constant reliance on AI and its impressive intelligence, the jobs many work and study for have a solid chance of becoming completely obsolete in less time than we thought.
A 2024 study by Nexford University shows that a total of 300 million full-time jobs can be replaced by AI in just the next few years. They go on to say that by 2030, 70% of companies will have applied AI to their workdays. Turning to AI once in a while for help on a project or task was coherent, but its usage has been taken to the next level.
Take a look at supermarkets: A majority of them have self-checkout sections where customers can scan and pay for items themselves without the help of staff. Each and every one of those machines replace a human being and take away a job in the process. Eventually, we won’t see cashiers at all, just a voice speaking through a computer functioning off of some dissent of AI technology. Jobs can, and will, be affected in similar ways throughout other working fields.
It is no surprise that technology has been on the rise, infiltrating our daily lives for a long time: first computers, then telephones, until they became something we couldn’t live without.
New technology, like AI, is blooming in the same way, except it has a heavy downside to it. While opening up new opportunities for technological growth, it is closing doors for humans as it continues to replace jobs and industries that we used to control.
The truth is, we can make all of the predictions we want and research all of the statistics, but with a development this large-scale, we don’t know exactly what will happen. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Photo credit: “Artificial Intelligence & AI & Machine Learning” by Mike MacKenzie is linked under (CC BY 2.0)
