As artificial intelligence gets better and better, traditional careers such as law and medicine will undergo radical changes, according to computer scientists. Already, programmers have designed a system that conducts nationwide kidney exchanges, matching donors with recipients faster than a human-operated system could.
“Going forward, we may see automation kind of unfold in a top-heavy pattern, where a lot of the best jobs are the ones to get impacted,” according to author and software developer Martin Ford. “Any kind of white-collar job where you are sitting at a computer at a desk, well, the people who you might call office drones, those are going to be very susceptible to this.”
Computers can already perform some of the tasks that are important to these fields, including many of a paralegal’s typical duties, according to A.I. scientist Daphne Koller. “I think that there will be entire job categories that will go away,” she said.
But the use of artificial intelligence could also create new jobs, Koller said.
“The optimistic perspective is that…the jobs that will be created will, by nature, be higher and more cognitively interesting jobs that are beyond the spectrum of what an artificial intelligence program can do,” she said.
Computers could also fill employment gaps in fields like data analysis, where 190,000 people are needed, according to McKinsey & Company.
But humans won’t be entirely replaced by machines anytime soon, Koller said. The human brain still has an ability that machines do not: to adapt to unexpected situations.
Warm up questions
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What is artificial intelligence?
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How do you interact with A.I. in your daily life?
Critical thinking questions
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Do you think robots and computers can perform jobs as well as humans? Why or why not?
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What risks are associated with machines performing more everyday jobs?
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Will robots ever be able to reason and adapt as well as human brains? Explain your answer.
