Some are scared that AI will take away jobs, but it might also create new ones, says Tom Merritt.
A lot of people are justifiably worried about AI taking away jobs—there’s no doubt it will. Will we create new jobs to take their place? Will we be able to transfer those people who lost jobs to AI into these new jobs? One ray of hope is that AI can also create new jobs. Let’s look at five ways AI can get you work.
- Encourage more creative and artistic jobs.How many times have you heard people complain that their job doesn’t allow them to be creative? Being creative is one of the things AI is worst at. If it takes over the mundane portions and frees up resources for creativity, that may mean a new job for you.
- New customers means more job openings. If AI improves retention and grows customers, they will still need humans to handle the new clients.
- More data analysis. We forget that the kind of data analysis AI can do is not really the top level kind managers and executives want. AI can increase the amount of insights gleaned from data, opening up new positions for people to organize and present it in a useful way for other humans.
- Encourage entrepreneurship.The Internet has already made it much easier to start the kinds of businesses that used to require a lot of equipment and personnel. As AI accelerates that trend more people can start a business they previously only dreamed of.
- The most obvious one to my mind. AI requires human developers to optimize it, develop it, and keep it running. The more AI we use, the more human programmers we’ll need.
We’re not saying these five suggestions will work for everyone, or even that they mean there’s no cause for worry, but they are another element to consider when figuring out how to deal with the oncoming rush of automation.
