Are you afraid that machine will push man out of the workplace? You’re probably not alone, but there’s no need to panic.
According to a December 2017 report from Gartner, AI will eliminate 1.8 million jobs in 2020. But it will create 2.3 million new jobs that same year, reaching 2 million net new jobs in 2025.
Some industries and occupations will see more impacts from AI than others. A January 2017 report from McKinsey Global Institute says physical activities in “highly structured and predictable environments” in industries like manufacturing, food service and retail will see big changes due to adoption of automation and AI. Telemarketers, bookkeepers, receptionists, bank tellers, financial analysts, insurance claims representatives, manufacturing workers and drivers are professions that often make the lists of jobs AI might render obsolete.
But while every occupation has the potential for partial automation, McKinsey says less than 5 percent of occupations could be fully automated. And Gartner says using AI augmentation to perform repetitive and mundane tasks will generate $2.9 trillion in business value and recover 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity by 2021.
“Be thinking about assistive AI, AI that’s meant to work with and help workers as opposed to replacing them,” says Craig Roth, research vice president, technology and service providers for Gartner. “I think there are a lot more opportunities for that.”
“Automation is already here, and it has been here for some time,” says Stickboy Creative founder Reema Bhatia. “We can either embrace it and compete at the level that we need to as business owners, or we can sit back, change nothing, and risk the possibility of being obsolete. The companies that are at the top have already embraced it. You can’t be afraid of it. By automating the repeated functions that humans do, we can focus more on the creativity of our minds. We can put people in the right positions where they can contribute in a creative manner, something that machines cannot do.”