Generative artificial intelligence will affect 300 million jobs in large economies

According to research by Goldman Sachs, the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence could lead to the automation of a quarter of work in the United States and the Eurozone.

The investment bank said on Monday that “generative” artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT, which can create content indistinguishable from human performance, could trigger a productivity boom that could eventually boost annual global gross domestic product by 7 percent over 10 years. . period.

However, if the technology lives up to expectations, it would also bring “significant disruption” to the labor market, exposing 300 million full-time workers in major economies to automation, according to the paper’s authors, Joseph Briggs and Devesh Kodnani. Lawyers and administrative employees are among those most at risk of being fired.

According to their calculations, roughly two-thirds of jobs in the United States and Europe are exposed to some degree of artificial intelligence automation, based on data from tasks typically performed in thousands of professions.

Most people would see less than half of their workload automated and would likely continue their work, freeing up some of their time for more productive activities.

In the United States, this should apply to 63 percent of the workforce, they reported. Another 30 percent do not involve physical or outdoor work, although their work is subject to other forms of automation.

However, about 7 percent of workers in the United States work in jobs where at least half of their tasks could be performed by generative artificial intelligence and are vulnerable to replacement.

According to Goldman, his research has shown a similar effect in Europe. Globally, as physical jobs make up a larger share of employment in the developing world, it is estimated that about a fifth of the work could be done by artificial intelligence – or about 300 million full-time jobs in major economies.

The report will spark a debate about the potential of artificial intelligence technologies to both revive stalled productivity growth in the rich world and create a new class of dispossessed white-collar workers who risk a fate similar to that of manufacturing workers in the 1980s.

Goldman’s impact estimates are more conservative than those of some academic studies, which have included the impacts of a wider range of related technologies.

According to a study published last week by OpenAI, the creator of GPT-4, 80 percent of the American workforce performs at least 10 percent of their tasks with the help of generative artificial intelligence, based on analysis by human researchers and the company’s big machine. language model (LLM).

Also Europol, the law enforcement agency warned This week, rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence could help online fraudsters and cybercriminals, so “dark LLMs . . . could become a key criminal business model of the future”.

According to Goldman, if investment in enterprise artificial intelligence grew at the same rate as software investment in the 1990s, U.S. investment could approach 1 percent of U.S. GDP by 2030.

Goldman’s estimates are based on an analysis of data from the United States and Europe on tasks typically performed in thousands of different occupations. The researchers hypothesized that AI would be able to perform tasks such as filling out tax returns for a small business; assessment of a complex insurance claim; or documenting the results of the site investigation.

AI is not designed to be applied to more delicate tasks such as making court rulings, monitoring the condition of patients in critical care, or studying international tax laws.