According to a new study by OpenAI in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania, about 80% of jobs will potentially be impacted by the rapid developments in the capabilities of generative AI.
The research found, in certain instances, that at least half of certain professionals' jobs could be affected by generative AI. This did not necessarily mean the jobs could be replaced, but they could be influenced or enhanced. The research aimed to look at the early potential impact of GPT-4 on the labour market in the US specifically. GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) refers to systems that can perform several tasks like answering questions, summarising text, generating lines of text and so on, such as ChatGPT. The purpose of the research was to analyse the "exposure" of work tasks to generative AI. It found about 80% of the US workforce could have at least 10% of their tasks affected by the introduction of GPTs, and about 19% of workers might see at least 50% of their tasks impacted. "The influence spans all wage levels, with higher-income jobs potentially facing greater exposure … considering each job as a bundle of tasks, it would be rare to find any occupation for which AI tools could do nearly all of the work," the study indicated. Among the jobs the study suggested would experience the most influence from GPTs were: accountants and auditors; lyricists and creative writers; interpreters and translators; writers and authors; news analysts, reporters and journalists; legal secretaries and administrative assistants; and public relations specialists. Twitter owner Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and more than 1,000 other people have signed a recently published open letter calling for a six-month pause on the development of large-scale AI systems. The letter cited fears of the potential risk the rapid rise of these developments could have on "society and humanity".
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Yamkela Mdaka at News24
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