AI and your job

[2024horizons]

Anyone else slightly terrified?

I don't really want to disclose what I do but there's basically an AI website that would probably cut it down by about half. I'm torn between being terrified and running away from it and embracing it - but I'd have to teach myself how to use it as we don't exactly have time in the day job to learn it.

I kind of feel like it's do it, or lose out, as it's inevitably coming anyway. It's the weirdest feeling. My job is going to look completely different in ten years.

My job will be taken over by AI but it is a long way from being there. There are programmes offering AI to help with my job, but they are still very crude. I am older so it is not a worry for me, but if I was young I would be looking to retrain.

I'm 43 so it's basically fucking annoying. I have long enough left to work for it to be an issue. But not quite the will to retrain.

When I was studying for my career in the 1990's I remember a lecturer saying then, computers will be able to do your job! That was even before I started.

So yes sometimes I think my career is past it's sell by date and surprised it still exists. So probably won't be long.

What a scary future when it's been recently said in the news 'people won't need to work'. Well in that case how will the bills be paid?!

Hi Op, I’d definitely encourage you to embrace it. AI is a genie out of the bottle and like the Web it’s here to stay.

‘I don’t prescribe to the Elon Musk - AI means that we won’t need to work - but jobs and our world experience will really change.

When I started out in my first job I got told off by the lead administrator for typing my own letter because that was the job of the typing pool. They wanted me to dictate or scribble the letter for them to produce. Within 2 years none of them were ‘typists’ anymore. But they all still had jobs.

This will be a disruptive period in the economy and jobs market - not least due to AI - but I’d definitely encourage you to embrace it and see AI as another tool in your kitbag.

AI has moved on phenomenally in the past 60+ years. However AI still lacks understanding, there are many scenarios where we recognise AI can outperform humans but the ‘dark art’ of the maths is still so opaque that we are running extensive trials before trusting AI to play a more prominent role (air traffic control) so it is reasonable to assume for many of us it will be a machine + human future in our working life rather than a machine only workplace.

I am personally and professionally excited about a whole new wave of opportunities for innovation. Like any tech it needs regulated and careful implementation but it opens up lots of new avenues for health, environmental and social improvements from precision medicine to optimising the way we use energy across the grid and in our homes to help us get to net zero.

More practically there are some great resources out there too. Microsoft copilot training info can help with how some of the more general tools can help with mundane tasks in the works place. However if you’d like to dig a big deeper then places like Data Camp or Udemy have hundreds of modules that you can choose from. At the end of the day, AI is still just maths and coded logic, without empathy and understanding it will not be able to fully replace humans in the workplace. Also depending upon where you live many colleges and unis are running courses to support adoption - often free.

sorry if it’s a long thread - it’s a topic I am really passionate about - lots of great books and documentaries out there too which I’d be happy to recommend. Definitely worth taking an active interest in though OP because even if your job weren’t to change, AI will still impact your life indirectly (from finance to law making, defence, healthcare etc) which is why governments are taking such an active look at the need for regulation and economic stimulus. Like digital becoming mainstream, this is going to change things.

I wouldnt mind giving up my job to AI if I could afford it!

I'm 40 and now have too much experience of all of the stuff that AI will be no good at to worry - stakeholder management, change management, line management, client relationship management.
But yes, the thing I trained in will be radically impacted by AI over the next 5-10 years.
It will be more junior level roles which are lost in the highest numbers unfortunately - those 'finding your feet' admin jobs and copy and paste jobs and basic research jobs, which help you get a foot on the ladder when you're starting out.

I agree with @Wilson79 that you should embrace this change. The very last thing you will need in your 40s is to be major redundant. If you do the training in your own time and put the effort in you will be a long way ahead of other members of staff.

If you look at this another way @2024horizons it sounds like a great opportunity. If you can learn how to use AI effectively, it will make you more efficient. It will reduce about 50% of your workload. Not 100%. You’ll still be needed, but your working life will become easier. Hard to comment fully without knowing your exact role, but you’ll be able to use the time saved to do the things at work that perhaps you never have time for at the moment.
It’s natural to be scared of change, but try and see this as an exciting opportunity.

I'm team embrace it.

See if you can work out how to use AI to automate a little part of your job. Then use the saved hours to do some learning on how to use it.

I'm a marketing director. A lot of our strategy is based around content marketing, so theoretically AI could jump straight in.

However, what it can't do is interview people for content, develop a strategy that isn't a complete mirror of our competitors, build relationships with individuals and organisations to encourage collaborative working, chat with the sales team over the kettle to spot opportunities for a promotion...

It's theoretically great for automating sequences, churning (shit) content that needs a total rewrite, plopping brand colours into already designed graphics etc... but anything that requires any level of skill? I'm not too worried just yet, it's got a long way to go before it replaces a human with an agile brain!

I'm a scientific software developer ... AI/ML means there's loads more stuff we can do. (Well... I'll be retiring. Loads more stuff for the younger generations to do.)

AI can do the mundane tasks. It still requires creativity and good prompt engineering, some jobs will be more impacted than others, but on the whole it'll just be a tool to help many sectors rather than something that'll dominate them.

It can provide at an operational level but not strategically. Agree entry level jobs more at risk.

I think my role relies so much on the human aspect and genuine interactions and creativity that it will be OK.

DH works in an AI related field so IDK the deal there 😁

No. I work in accounts and all this scaremongering particularly about accounts is just irritating. Most accountants and accounts staff have fully taken on board all AI already and it's making their jobs easier.

My job might be taken over by AI, but it involves talking to confused, demented, upset, angry and very immature members of the public

They would never cope with talking to a machine

AI in theory should help me as an EA/PA but I don’t use ChatGPT and I’m not sure I want to use it either.

The slightly worrying thing is how companies try to sell this to people.

Last spring me and my ex colleagues from a digital department in central government were invited to a Microsoft event day at their HQ/offices in Oxford Street. Basically a sales pitch but showing us how to use AI etc to combine eg with Teams and other MS packages to create reports and other things. I did say “so doesn’t this mean this could put me and others out of jobs?”. They admitted it could.

To be fair unless gov depts want to invest in this (not sure if they did in the end) then great but surely this should be done so people learn how to work with it rather than against it and embrace other roles which will be created out of AI. But otherwise people in those jobs won’t want to embrace it if it means their jobs are made redundant.

I’ve also seen a few blips and glitches in AI packages too which make me personally wary of it. You’ll always get though (usually same old people, men of a certain age who think they’re progressive) who’ll jump on this as it’s Emperors new clothes stuff.

I thought many many jobs would be lost at Asda etc with the introduction of scan yourself tills and handheld devices you use yourself.

Not sure it has been the drama I thought it would be. My friends are still employed in Asda and sainsburys when they feared they wouldn't be.

So might be ok up to a point as people will retire or leave and not be replaced but there will still be jobs due the foreseeable.

Fifty years from now though....???

Most professionals I know will embrace it. In the last 30 years all admin support has been phased out and we’re expected to do that on top of what was once the day job. So if I can use AI to eg draft an agenda for an ‘away day’ that I then tweak I’m all for it.

I think ai is brilliant and we should embrace it.
Just like I love Google and not having to go to a library and check out an encyclopaedia. Or Microsoft word with its spell checker so I don't have to dig out a dictionary multiple times a day.
People always worry about technology moving on and it taking over our jobs, but it rarely does. Jobs adapt, and I'm a firm believer in working smarter and not harder!

@Wilson79 Could you recommend a few books and podcasts that are good starting points?

I use ChatGPT a lot for writing code - mainly either if I need a starting point to do something complex, or just out of laziness to save myself lots of typing. It all needs very careful checking and usually quite a lot of fixing and/or adapting to identify and iron out issues, as it's usually close to what I need but not quite right. It is a big time saver though and you really need to understand how to write prompts effectively to get it to do what you want.

I went on a training course last week and they showed us the AI app Sora. What an eye opener that was!

Look up Sora on YouTube. Unbelievable. Surely film and TV acting will be defunct in the near future. As will set designers and set carpenters, costume designers and makers and make up artists.

I am unclear if my job would be taken over by AI. I work in Child Safeguarding. They've tried a few times to use computer programmes to predict risk in the past and its gone spectacularly wrong.

I’m pretty unimpressed by the AI I’ve encountered so far. Orlando airport AI face identification for boarding totally failed with my identical twins (which really isn’t that rare). It identified one as being the other but then identified the other as being the same one and confused the system into thinking one dc had boarded twice. It took 2 staff members to check the second twin’s passport then after boarding 4 members of staff came to find us because dd had boasted twice… we had to show both of their passports.

Similar issue at passport control in the uk.

Also, chat gpt job applications! Argh, out of 49 applications I read last week I’d guess 60-70% were chat gpt.

I knew AI would take my job (editing) eventually but big publishers have already developed programs that will do it much faster and much cheaper than I can do. It's not perfect but it's pretty good. Publishers developed it so I assume they're happy with the quality. I'm already seeing a huge decrease in available work and it's pretty devastating. I worked hard to be a trusted name in my niche and it's all going down the drain. :(