Occupations most threatened by AI automation according to Goldman Sachs

Artificial intelligence (AI) innovation could affect up to 300 million jobs, but there is still “significant uncertainty” about the technology’s outlook, according to a new report by Goldman Sachs.

The emergence of “generative” technologies such as OpenAI GPT-4, which can generate realistic content including text and images, could “significantly disrupt” the job market, according to the financial firm.

The latest generation of AIs can understand dozens of languages, write computer code, and create lifelike replicas on the fly, thanks to their “ability to generate content indistinguishable from human creation and break down communication barriers between humans and machines.” “major progress with potentially large macroeconomic implications”.

In the US and Europe, “roughly two-thirds of current jobs are subject to some level of AI automation,” and AI is predicted to eventually “replace up to a quarter of current jobs.”

“While the impact of AI on the labor market is likely to be significant, most jobs and industries are only partially affected by automation and therefore will be complemented, not replaced by AI.

The greatest impact of AI is in clerical and administrative support, legal professions, architecture and engineering.

Industries affected by AI

Percentage of work in each industry in the US that can be automated, according to Goldman Sachs:

• Office and administrative support – 46 percent
• Legal – 44 percent
• Architecture and Engineering – 37 percent
• Life sciences, physics and social sciences – 36 percent
• Business and financial transactions – 35 percent
• State and social service – 33 percent
• Management – 32 percent
• Sales and the like – 31 percent
• Computers and mathematics – 29 percent
• Agriculture, fisheries and forestry – 28 percent
• Security service – 28 percent
• Medical workers and technicians – 28 percent
• Tuition and library fees – 27 percent.
• Medical support – 26 percent
• Arts, design, entertainment, sports and media: 26 percent
• All industries – 25 percent
• Personal care and maintenance – 19 percent
• Related to cooking and serving – 12 percent
• Transport and movement of materials – 11 percent
• Production – 9 percent
• Construction and mining – 6 percent
• Installation, maintenance and repair – 4 percent
• Cleaning and maintenance of buildings and territories – 1 percent

Despite the potentially dire consequences for workers, this would mean an “economically significant” increase in global productivity that could boost global GDP by as much as 7 percent.

Goldman Sachs adds that the displacement of workers due to automation “has traditionally been offset by job creation, and the emergence of new jobs driven by technological innovation provides most of the long-term job growth.”

AI “is well positioned to rapidly evolve and scale up in the coming years” at a pace comparable to the technological advances that have brought the power of the personal computer to the masses, the report says.

Technology has already begun to surpass human capabilities in tasks such as image classification and reading comprehension.