One Man Conglomerate, #05. However, the job market will shrink significantly. [PART I]

The following is English version of Chapter 2 of ‘One Man Conglomerate’, published in August 2023 by Do-Jeon, Marcus, Jeong.

 

2nd Chat: How will our lives changes?

 

#05. However, the job market will shrink significantly.

 

[01] Many jobs will disappear with the advent of AI.

 

As AI technology advances, many jobs will be eliminated. In other words, AIs like ChatGPT will replace our jobs. This is because AI will handle ① much more work ② at a much lower cost ③ much more quickly than humans and ④ 365 days 24 hours a day. Of course, the replacement speed will be very fast. This is because AI-related technologies are developing rapidly.

In fact, from a company’s perspective, the easiest way to improve corporate value is to reduce jobs. So the thought that ‘my job will be safe’ is close to a delusion. This is because there can be no exceptions to job replacement by AI. However, only the order is slightly different depending on the job (or role).

In a recent paper entitled “LLM’s Impact on the U.S. Labor Market,” ❶ OpenAI predicted that 80 percent of all U.S. workers will be affected by “more than 10 percent of their duties” and 19 percent of all U.S. workers will be affected by “more than 50 percent of their duties.” Here, ‘affected’ can be interpreted to mean that ChatGPT shortens the relevant work time. It’s surprising that this is the case at the current GPT level.

For reference, the occupations predicted to be affected by more than 50% in this paper are as follows. The numbers in parentheses have no special meaning.
(1)Mathematicians, (2)Accountants and Auditors, (3)News Analysts, Reporters, and Journalists, (4)Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants (Secretaries and clerical affairs), (5)Writers and Authors, (6)Web and Digital Interface Designers, (7)Tax Prepares, (8)Financial Quantitative Analysts, (9)Climate Change Policy Analysts, (10)Clinical Data Managers

According to the ‘❷ World Economic Forum (WEF)’ report ‘The Future of Jobs’, approximately 83 million jobs will be lost and 69 million jobs will be created worldwide by 2027. In other words, the number of jobs will be reduced by about 14 million by 2027. Of course, the biggest cause of this is the development and digitalization of various technologies, including artificial intelligence.

 

Image: developed by Midjourney

 

The top 15 occupations mentioned in this report that will decline by 2027 are as follows. Of course, this is written from a global perspective. So it may be a little different from our situation. For reference, the smaller the number in parentheses is the occupation group in which jobs are being reduced more. And the Korean interpretation was done arbitrarily by the author.

(1)Data entry clerks(데이터 입력 담당자), (2)Administrative and executive secretaries(임원 등의 사무직 비서), (3)Accounting, bookkeeping and payroll clerks(회계, 부기, 급여 담당자), (4)Security guards(경비원), (5)Building caretakers and housekeepers(건물 관리인 및 가정부), (6)Cashiers and ticket clerks(출납 및 매표원), (7)Material-recording and stock-keeping clerks(자료 기록 및 재고 관리원), (8)Assembly and factory workers(조립 등 공장 근로자), (9)Postal service clerks(우체국 사무원), (10)Bank tellers and related clerks(은행 텔러 및 관련 사무원), (11)Shop salespersons(매장 판매원), (12)Telemarketers(텔레마케터), (13)Client information and customer service workers(고객 정보 및 고객 서비스 담당자), (14)Business services and administration managers(비즈니스 서비스 및 행정업무 관리자), (15)Door-to-door sales workers, news and street vendors, and related workers(방문 판매원, 뉴스 스탠드 및 노점 관련 근무자)

Of course, there is also data from Korea. According to a recent survey by the ❸ Korea Press Promotion Foundation, the top 10 occupational groups that can be replaced by AI are as follows. For reference, the smaller the number in parentheses, the higher the possibility of substitution.

(1) Translator and interpreter, (2) data analysis expert, (3) asset manager, insurance planner, (4) accountant, tax accountant, (5) image and video editor, (6) customer counselor, (7) developer, programmer , (8) reporter (journalist), (9) professor, teacher/lecturer, (10) writer, composer, and lyricist

I was also curious about ❹ ChatGPT’s opinion. So he asked Chat GPT, “Give me 20 jobs that could be threatened by the advent of Chat GPT.” Then ChatGPT responded as follows.

“With the advancement of artificial intelligence, many jobs are at risk of disappearing in the next 10 years. Here are 20 jobs that may be impacted:
(1)Telemarketers, (2)Data entry clerks, (3)Cashiers, (4)Travel agents, (5)Bank tellers, (6)Receptionists, (7)Assembly line workers, (8)Postal service workers, (9)Bookkeeping clerks, (10)Stockroom & warehouse workers, (11)Printers, (12)Insurance underwriters, (13)Loan officers, (14)Tax preparers, (15)Customer service repre- senttatives, (16)Fast food workers, (17)Retail salespeople, (18)Real estate agents, (19)Journalists, (20)Accountants”

So, I asked for a more detailed explanation of why the telemarketer at the top is disappearing, and ChatGPT responded as follows.

“For example, the reason why telemarketers are disappearing is because with the development of artificial intelligence technology and the emergence of automated marketing tools, human telemarketing is no longer necessary. Telemarketing usually refers to the activity of promoting or selling products or services through phone calls or text messages. However, such telemarketing can also make customers uncomfortable with spam calls or messages. Additionally, many people are frustrated with this because they still continue to telemarket even if the target customer has already purchased the product or service. However, artificial intelligence marketing tools can analyze large amounts of data, identify customer behavior patterns, find products or services that customers want, and automatically deliver messages at the right time. Therefore, using these artificial intelligence marketing tools can reduce unnecessary telemarketing and establish effective marketing strategies. For this reason, I believe it is highly likely that the telemarketing job will be automated, thereby replacing the role of telemarketers.”

Who actually writes this answer? Anyway, back, there are common denominators in the ‘❶ OpenAI Paper’, ‘❷ World Economic Forum’s Report’, ‘❸ Korea Press Promotion Foundation’s Survey’, and ‘❹ Chat GPT’ for occupations that will be affected in the future by advances in AI technology, including ChatGPT.

TThat is, ‘jobs that are easy for AI to replace.’ This is similar to the prediction of Yuval Noah Harari (1976). A year ago, Yuval Harari summarized the characteristics of jobs that would be threatened by AI into two main points. One is ‘①a job that is easy to replace,’ and the other is a job in ‘②a field where a lot of money flows.’

Looking at ❶❷❸❹ above, things that are easy to replace can be roughly divided into two categories. One is ‘ⓐSimple work where the same thing is repeated according to a certain pattern (especially office work)’ and the other is ‘ⓑWork related to currently available generative AIs (mainly creative).’ And among these, number ❶❷❹ has a particularly high proportion of ⓐ.

Actually, ⓑ is something that anyone can infer, so I will not mention it separately. What we need to think about a little more here is ⓐ. Most of the occupations mentioned in ❶❷❹ above are ‘simple jobs where the same work is repeated.’ But will only ‘simple tasks’ be replaced?

I don’t think so. I believe that if something is repeated (following a certain pattern or process), it can be replaced regardless of its difficulty. This is because AI possesses abilities that are incomparable to humans and, moreover, learns more diligently and without rest than humans. For example, let’s assume that a marketing expert’s work pattern is as follows.
(1) Relevant market research and data collection / calculation → (2) Analysis (market and performance) → (3) Derivation of meaningful implications → (4) Preparation of alternatives (improvements, solutions, etc., regardless of name) that reflect insights → (5) Visualization and documentation

Among them, is there a task that AI cannot replace? Of course, at first, it may show disappointing results that are inferior to humans in steps (3) or (4). However, even now, through optimization tasks such as additional learning and prompt engineering, it is possible to easily overcome human levels.

Therefore, not only school teachers and professors, but also judges, prosecutors, detectives (investigators), lawyers, labor attorneys, patent attorneys, administrators, doctors, and professional office workers such as analysis experts, strategy experts, researchers, and consultants, as well as face-to-face sales experts will eventually replaced by AI.

The timing of the substitution is only slightly different. In other words, AI is likely to replace most of the human work, not just ‘simple work’.

Of course, AI can replace, but it will not replace tasks that are better done by humans. For example, this could be the tellers or receptionists at the bank mentioned above. This is because, depending on the situation, face-to-face contact with customers is necessary rather than mechanical processing. If this can increase customer satisfaction and improve sales, that is, if it is judged to be more valuable than advertising or other marketing activities, companies will use humans instead of AI. This is because if these things are replaced with AI simply based on the standards of efficiency or economy, it may harm the company in the long run.

 

 

[01-1] And new employment will decline significantly.

 

As mentioned above, just applying the current level of ChatGPT algorithm to corporate practice will greatly improve work efficiency. Therefore, some American companies have already implemented large-scale layoffs.

However, the movement to replace employees with AI is not yet visible in Korea. This may be because the justification under labor law has not yet been established. Instead, it is very likely that companies will freeze or significantly reduce new hiring in the future. This is because even if they do that, the surplus manpower will immediately increase if they utilize ChatGPT, which allows them to work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

 

Image: developed by Midjourney

 

In a situation where the market is not growing due to demographic changes, the number of people exceeding the necessary level is simply redundancy or cost to the company.

And this movement is likely to continue until the retirement of the second baby boomers (born in 1968-1976). This is because fast-developing AI will fill the position much better. And of course, the government and public institutions will not be much different from this. This is because the standardized public sector, which operates according to regulations, is much more likely to be replaced by AI or robots.

In any case, this phenomenon will generally start with general office workers, but will then quickly spread to professional and non-office workers.

Of course, if the situation is like this, politicians may make a show and tell companies to ‘create more quality jobs.’ However, in this case, it is highly likely that companies will not cooperate with the government or want to pay for cooperation. This is because there are not many domestic companies that are not influenced by foreign capital.

In addition, this situation will similarly applied to the self-employment sector.

 

[ Attention ]

The above article excludes footnotes and details, unlike the actual book.
Please read the following post for details of “#03”

위 글은 정도전 작가가 2023년 8월에 출간한 ‘1인 대기업(One Man Conglomerate)’의 챕터2 영문 버전입니다.

 

참고: 1인 대기업 122p 캡처본