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Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are certainly impressive in their ability to perform complicated tasks that were once thought to be only suitable for humans.
The revolutionary ChatGPT has been used to take exams, deliver a sermon, write software, and provide relationship advice – just to name a few features.
But for some people, these technologies have raised a scary question: Can they take over my job?
A study from Princeton University in New Jersey, USA, has revealed the 20 professions most at risk of being laid off due to AI.
In first place is the call center operator, but the next eight are all teachers of different disciplines, including languages, history, law and religion.
A study from Princeton University in New Jersey, USA has revealed the 20 professions most at risk of being laid off thanks to AI
The authors wrote: “The effect of AI on work is likely to be multifaceted. In some cases, AI can replace work previously done by humans, and in other cases, AI can complement the work of humans.
| Rank | Function |
|---|---|
| 1 | Call center operators |
| 2 | Teachers of English language and literature (higher education) |
| 3 | Foreign language and literature teachers (higher education) |
| 4 | History teachers (higher education) |
| 5 | Law teachers (higher education) |
| 6 | Philosophy and religion teachers (higher education) |
| 7 | Sociology teachers (higher education) |
| 8 | Political science teachers (higher education) |
| 9 | Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Teachers (Higher Education) |
| 10 | sociologists |
| 11 | Social work teachers (higher education) |
| 12 | Psychology teachers (higher education) |
| 13 | Communications teachers (higher education) |
| 14 | Political scientists |
| 15 | Area teachers, ethnic and cultural studies (higher education) |
| 16 | Referees, mediators and mediators |
| 17 | Judges, magistrate judges and magistrates |
| 18 | Geography teachers (higher education) |
| 19 | Library science teachers (higher education) |
| 20 | Clinical, Counseling and School Psychologists |
A prominent example of how AI capabilities continue to evolve is the recent advancements in AI language modeling.
“In particular, ChatGPT, a language modeler released by OpenAI in late 2022, has received tremendous attention and controversy.”
For their study, published on arXivthe researchers first constructed an algorithm that measures the extent to which 800 professions can be automated by AI.
They did this by pairing 10 AI-powered applications, such as translation, language modeling, and image generation, with 52 human skills, such as oral comprehension and arm-hand stability.
The results revealed the top 20 jobs whose workload could be taken over by AI technology.
Many of these jobs are high-paying positions that require a significant level of education, including actuaries, budget analysts, accountants, and judges.
But when the study authors tweaked the algorithm to account for the significant advances in language modeling we’ve seen in recent months, it produced a different list of high-risk jobs.
Call center agents were ranked as the most risky, which may come as no surprise given that many companies are currently using AI-powered chatbots for this role.
Lyft, Spotify, and Mastercard are just a few of the large group that push users to ask a chatbot to better target their questions.
The researchers wrote, “One might imagine that human telemarketers could benefit from using language modeling to augment their work.
‘For example, customer responses can be fed into a language modeling engine in real time and relevant, customer-specific questions can be quickly passed to the telemarketer.
“Or you could imagine human telemarketers being replaced by language modeling bots.”
However, 14 of the 20 professions were higher education teachers in a variety of disciplines, including history, geography, religion, sociology, and English.
The authors note that ‘teaching professions are likely to be relatively more affected by advances in language modeling than other professions’ (stock image)
Call center workers were ranked as the most risky, which may come as no surprise as many companies are currently using AI-powered chatbots for this job (stock image)
The team notes that ‘educational professions are likely to be relatively more affected by advances in language modeling than other professions’.
The study comes shortly after researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne revealed which jobs they believe are most and least likely to be taken by robots.
Their findings suggest that meat packers, cleaners and builders are most at risk of being replaced by machines, while teachers, lawyers and physicists are safe.
“The main challenge for society today is how to become resilient to automation,” explains Professor Rafael Lalive, who co-led the study.
“Our work provides detailed career advice for workers at high risk from automation, helping them take on safer jobs while reusing many of the skills they learned in the old job.”
Based on the findings, the researchers developed a tool that revealed the automation risk of your job and how you could reuse your abilities.