(New York Post) Artificial intelligence is here, and it’s coming for your job.
So promising are the tool’s capabilities, Microsoft — amidst laying off 10,000 people — has announced a “multiyear, multibillion dollar investment” in the revolutionary technology, which is growing smarter by the day.
And the rise of the machines leaves many well-paid workers vulnerable, experts warn.
“AI is replacing the white-collar workers. I don’t think anyone can stop that,” said Pengcheng Shi, an associate dean in the department of computing and information sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology.
“This is not crying wolf,” Shi told The Post. “The wolf is at the door.”
From the financial sector to health care to publishing, a number of industries are currently vulnerable, Shi said. But as AI continues its mind-blowing advancements, he maintains that humans will learn how to harness the technology.
Artificial intelligence is already at a point where it can do the jobs people are paid for.Shutterstock
AI is already having an impact on multiple industries, professors warn.dpa/picture alliance via Getty I
Already, AI is upending certain fields, particularly after the release of ChatGPT, a surprisingly intelligent chat bot released in November that’s free to the public.
Earlier this month, it emerged that consumer publication CNET had been using AI to generate stories since late last year — a practice put on pause after fierce backlash on social media. Academia was recently rocked by news that ChatGPT had scored higher than many humans on an MBA exam administered at Penn’s elite Wharton School. After Darren Hick, a philosophy professor at South Carolina’s Furman University, caught a student cheating with the wildly popular tool, he told The Post that the discovery had left him feeling “abject terror” for what the future might entail.
Hick and many others are right to be worried said Chinmay Hegde, a computer science and electrical engineering associate professor at New York University.
“Certain jobs in sectors such as journalism, higher education, graphic and software design — these are at risk of being supplemented by AI,” said Hegde, who calls ChatGPT in its current state, “very, very good, but not perfect.”
For now, anyway.
Here, a look at some of the jobs most vulnerable to the fast-learning, ever-evolving technology.
Education
Professors and teachers could be replaced by AI courses, according to experts.Getty Images
As it stands now, ChatGPT — currently banned in NYC schools — “can easily teach classes already,” Shi said. The tool would likely be most effective at middle- or high-school level, he added, as those classes reinforce skills already established in elementary school.
Although it has bugs and inaccuracies in terms of knowledge, this can be easily improved. Basically, you just need to train the ChatGPT,” Shi continued.
As for higher education, both Shi and Hegde maintain that college courses will need a human leader for the foreseeable future, but the NYU professor did admit that, in theory, AI could teach without oversight.
In the meantime, educators are seeing their roles transformed nearly overnight. It’s already become a struggle to adapt teaching and testing methods in efforts to keep up with the increasingly talented ChatGPT, which, according to Shi, can successfully complete a corner-cutting student’s coursework at a master’s level.
Ph.D. candidates hoping for a shortcut are likely out of luck — creating an independent thesis on an area not often or thoroughly studied is beyond AI’s abilities for the time being, he said.
