Artificial intelligence will transform millions of jobs over the next decade, but fears that it will trigger a wave of mass unemployment are exaggerated, according to a new Goldman Sachs report. The investment bank estimates that about 15 million US workers could face job displacement during the AI transition.
The report, titled “An AI Job Apocalypse,” includes perspectives from leading economists and AI researchers. Their overall conclusion is that AI will cause disruption, but it is unlikely to trigger the massive unemployment many people fear, reported ANI citing Goldman Sachs report.
Joseph Briggs, Senior Global Economist at Goldman Sachs, estimates that more than 9% of the US workforce could face displacement over the next decade as companies adopt AI technologies. That amounts to nearly 15 million workers. He believes the impact will not last forever because new industries and occupations are expected to absorb many workers over time.
“Despite our expectation that AI-related job losses will lead to a meaningful amount of labour displacement, we continue to expect that labour market headwinds will be temporary. Key to this view is our expectation that over the long run AI will create many new jobs even as it destroys existing ones,” Briggs said.
The report says history offers several examples where technological advances replaced some jobs but also created entirely new occupations. Goldman Sachs expects AI to follow a similar path if businesses continue investing in workers and new opportunities instead of focusing only on cutting labour costs, reported news agency ANI.
How many jobs could AI replace?
Economist and Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believes AI will have a modest negative impact on employment during the next five years. He expects AI to replace more jobs than it creates in the short term, but he does not believe the losses will reach the levels predicted by some critics.
“AI is more likely to replace jobs than augment them in the near term. So, I expect the number of jobs to decrease in the coming years. But the scale of job losses won’t be anywhere close to the very large layoffs some are predicting,” Acemoglu said.
He also warned that the long-term outcome depends on how businesses choose to use AI. If companies rely mainly on AI to replace workers rather than help them become more productive, job losses could increase over the next decade.
The report says AI adoption is unlikely to happen at the same speed across all industries. Several practical challenges still stand in the way of widespread use, including reliability, access to quality data, implementation costs and difficulties in deploying AI systems across workplaces.
Neil Thompson, Director of the FutureTech research project at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, believes these obstacles will slow the pace of disruption.
“The impact AI ultimately has on the labour market may not be nearly as large as its impressive capabilities suggest,” Thompson said.
He described AI as “a rising tide” instead of “a crashing wave,” suggesting that businesses and workers will have time to adapt to the changes instead of facing sudden disruption.
Who will feel the biggest impact?
Goldman Sachs report says AI is already affecting occupations in different ways. In some sectors, companies use AI to replace certain tasks previously handled by workers. In others, AI helps employees become more productive and perform their jobs more efficiently.
Goldman Sachs economist Elsie Peng said AI has already created some new jobs through productivity gains, but those gains have not fully balanced the positions lost because of automation.
“In practice, we find that AI augmentation has created jobs, but not enough to fully offset the job losses from AI substitution, resulting in a small net drag on the labour market,” Peng said.
The report also suggests that younger workers and people at the beginning of their careers may face greater challenges, especially in white-collar jobs that are highly exposed to AI tools. Entry-level positions often involve routine tasks that AI can perform more easily.
However, Goldman Sachs economists Jessica Rindels and Pierfrancesco Mei found little evidence so far that AI has significantly damaged employment opportunities for recent college graduates. Even so, they believe this group remains more vulnerable to future disruption than many experienced workers.
The report states that AI will reshape workplaces and increase productivity across many industries. However, it argues that labour markets have repeatedly adapted to technological change throughout history. New occupations are likely to emerge as old ones disappear, provided governments, businesses and workers invest in skills, training and jobs that complement AI rather than compete against it.