Artificial intelligence raises serious job concerns but will also create new jobs, the head of Adecco, the world’s largest temporary employment agency, told AFP.
From meteorologists to lawyers to screenwriters, genetic AI capable of generating content — like the ChatGPT chatbot — could redefine many professions.
But it will also create new jobs, according to Denis Machuel, chief executive of Zurich-based Adecco.
How will artificial intelligence disrupt the world of work?
Machuel: “It’s probably the biggest upheaval and revolution we’ve seen in decades. It’s going to be massive. And let’s be clear, no one really knows or can really predict with any precision what’s going to happen in the next five years.
“All this productivity growth is helping people do more, but it’s also destroying some of the jobs that people do. There’s definitely an element of jobs being created and jobs being destroyed. We’ve seen that with the Internet, with digitization .
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“What we’ve seen in the past tells us that there’s more or less a balance between the two.
“Technology brings a much better understanding of the interaction between people and markets, but it also brings complexity. And that complexity requires more people to engage with it.
“GenAI will bring productivity on the one hand, but it will also bring more evidence, more data, more ways of looking at relationships, products and services. And for all of that, we need people.”
Are some jobs more at risk than others?
Machuel: “It’s probably too early to describe precisely jobs that are fundamentally at risk. Because we have to look at the tasks behind them.
“If you’re just calculating information, gathering information and synthesizing it, then your job is at risk, whether it’s a job in finance, or law, or business, because … that’s what GenAI does.
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“White-collar workers are likely to be more affected than white-collar workers — at least in the short term.
“Within the white-collar space, things related to mass information management will be more disrupted than skills related to relationship building, strategic thinking, or problem solving.
“However, we know there are limits.
“Take the example of a lawyer or a lawyer: the calculation of a huge number of legal decisions can be done by GenAI.
“However, the deep and nuanced understanding of a complex legal situation and the problem-solving skills required to bring things together is still very much human-related.
“Typically, the kind of mundane tasks that can be automated aren’t the most exciting things for people to do. So if you can automate that, it gives you more time to focus on the nicer stuff.”
How is artificial intelligence used at Adecco?
“We have signed a partnership with Microsoft to create a careers platform that will advise companies and workers on their journey, supporting their reflection on what kind of skills and jobs they might be looking for.
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“Opening horizons to things that people didn’t necessarily imagine but could be achievable for them.
“There are quite a few workers whose skills are transferable.
“The good news about GenAI is that there is a positive explosion of upscaling and reskilling capabilities through these tools.
“We built a resume with an AI tool that helps people create their own resume.
“In the daily work of our recruiters, I mentioned this chatbot that interacts with thousands of candidates very quickly.
“It enables our partners to spend more time on the human connection rather than a database search.
“This means a recruiter can spend more time with people than doing mundane tasks.”
Source: AFP