Artificial Intelligence Will Design The Careers Of The Future

By Virat Singh

There has been remarkable progress and enhancement in the domain of artificial intelligence over the past decade. The growth of machine learning is in fact so significant that many analysts are comparing the onset of artificial intelligence to the dawn of the industrial revolution. As mechanization had forever changed the lives, jobs, and skillets of people, so will AI, creating a huge disruption in the career landscape for millennials.

Countries all around the world will see a shift in the type of labor demanded, which they may not be prepared for. Keeping this in mind, how will artificial intelligence affect Indian jobs, particularly for millennials?

Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science which aims to create machines that exhibit human-level intelligence, and are capable of making informed decisions as a real person would. These robots have reached an astonishingly accurate level of precision in their work, and it is easy to see how they could take over the jobs of actual people, especially considering these bots don’t require holidays, training, or ‘days off’. There are many careers at risk in India, and while most are low- or mid-level jobs, many are also aspired professions such as medicine, business, and law.

The algorithm will replace the loan officer

The financial sector is a prime target for artificial intelligence to take over. Many financial corporations, like HDFC Bank and Axis Bank, have pushed for an increase in research in the field of machine learning. HDFC saw employee count fall for two consecutive quarters, and fell by 7%. A human worker simply cannot compete with a machine that can make calculation thousands of orders faster on multiple transactions at once, and thus is at a risk of being replaced. The effect is already tangible; there is a drastic drop in number of tellers being hired by the previously mentioned banks. Experts say that people who are detail-oriented or good at number-crunching should instead consider a career in data science, which requires little to no actual programming experience and is instead an extension of statistics. In any case, expect to see a drop in the number of finance or banking jobs sooner than later.

The next field of work threatened by machine learning is medicine. While doctors are paid well and do tremendous good for society, they see artificial intelligence effecting their work as well. Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence robot, is now considered to be at least on par with a professional radiologist. Machines like Watson can accurately detect diseases like Alzheimer’s a decade before any symptoms show, and can also create a pill with a certain combination of chemicals tailored for individual patients based on their specific conditions. Surgeons are perhaps the most at risk by automation, as some machines are now many times more proficient than even veteran surgeons, and don’t require breaks between nine-hour surgeries, are now entering production. The medical field is not as close to being automated when compared to the financial sector, however, as the importance of a doctor do work and the consequences of a misdiagnosis have forced researchers to run several more tests on their bots when compared to those in other industries.

Some can breathe easy

Law is another profession that has already been partially automated for some time now. The pace is accelerating. The bulk of many lawyers’ time is spent on browsing through boxes of paperwork and legal documents to find some sort of pattern, or a break in it. It is a tedious job which has now been taken over by machines, which can do it in a fraction of the time as lawyers and are much more efficient. As such, it requires far less lawyers, and in particular paralegals, to do the same work.

By 2025 machines will be competing for half of all employment opportunities. And the completion won’t be fair. Extrapolating the past is a ‘safe’ way to predict the future. The optimists are ‘counting’ on history and are prone to say if technology could really obliterate jobs, no one would have any work. This optimism has merit.

However, there are some fields which are safe from the growing grasp of algorithms and artificial intelligence, for now. As mentioned previously, AI is taking over law jobs, but law is a profession which cannot be completely automated, as defendants would still need humans, and human persuasion, to win the actual case for them. While self-driving cars are all the rage in the West, don’t expect to see them in India for quite a while. These cars are built on the premise of a GPS being installed in every car on the street, which is far from the case in India. Furthermore, many corporations would need to train these cars extensively if they are to withstand the Indian traffic and roads. As such, driving jobs are secure for now.

Challenge of Plenty, Opportunities galore

Overall, artificial intelligence will have a huge impact on almost every profession. Those which are safe from automation now will likely not be for very long. However, this may not be such a bad thing. As the industrial revolution has forced people to pick up higher-level skills, so might the rise of AI, especially in India, which has a strong service sector. Writers, people managers, CEO’s, school teachers, entrepreneurs, data scientists, can breathe easy in the emerging career landscape. The automation of many mechanical jobs in eighteenth century forced people to work in better paying and less intensive jobs, and this might happen again today. Instead of the perceiving artificial intelligence as a threat to our existing jobs, perhaps we should see it as an opportunity to work better jobs. The millennial must keep a keen eye on the impact of AI on the economy, businesses and careers. AI challenges our notion of work. AI also creates opportunities that the millennial can respond to eagerly and confidently.

Several million jobs are under threat. Lack of relevant and sufficient training will push them further away from the regrouped jobs. This may increase the inequality but the bigger concern for our policy makers should be the chasm that this will widen and lead to social conflicts.

Virat Singh is pursuing computer science program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison