Government report reveals which demographic is most at risk of losing their job to AI
A new report published by the Australian government has catalogued the country's first formal effort to track how AI is affecting job security.
Titled AI and employment in Australia, the report drew on labor market data to identify which roles face the highest exposure to automation.
The report has warned that jobs typically held by women and university graduates are among those most likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence.
According to the report, cognitive roles such as clerks, programmers and administrative workers carry the highest risk of being replaced by AI, while manual jobs including caregivers, tradespeople and drivers carry the lowest.
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Which jobs are most at risk from AI replacement?
The report found that roles in telemarketing, advertising and accountancy were among those most exposed to automation, largely because they rely on the kind of routine, codified tasks that AI systems and large language models are best equipped to handle.
By contrast, manual jobs requiring hands-on skill, such as plumbing or operating a forklift, were described as broadly insulated from AI disruption, at least for now.
That distinction, the report noted, has a gender dimension.
It said 'nearly 70% of workers in the least-exposed group' were male, since male-dominated manual trades tend to sit outside AI's current reach.
Women, meanwhile, were 'thought to be susceptible to automation because they are disproportionately employed in exposed occupations', including many of the clerical and administrative roles flagged as high-risk.
Younger workers were also identified as vulnerable.
The report explained that AI models are 'generally best at performing tasks that require codified knowledge', or 'book-learning', but are 'less capable of replacing tacit knowledge, the idiosyncratic tips and tricks that accumulate with experience', which younger employees 'disproportionately lack' compared to seasoned workers.
Which professions are most at risk from AI, according to AI?
10) Commercial Translators
Large language models may be used increasingly to process technical and corporate documents.
Over time this may result in human translators only proofreading the document.
9) Retail Cashiers
The unexpected item in the bagging area is now the presence of artificial intelligence at the checkouts.
While self-checkouts are already a thing, AI could be used in their programming, or even as in some stores where customers can place the items in their basket and their account be charged.
8) Market Research Analysts
According to AI, it will be able to carry out tasks like researching competitor pricing, customer data, sentiment analysis, and putting all of these together into a final report.
This, the generated answer said, would then be used by humans in the final strategic decisions.
7) Commodity Content Writers
This includes things like the descriptions of products, in online retail, as well as captions ads on social amedia.
The need for a large volume of content makes this something that an automatic text generator could do, the AI said.
6) Paralegals
These are the professionals who review documentation including from previous cases, which can then be passed on to lawyers working on a case.
AI's generated answer said that it could scan the documents very quickly, getting rid of this need.
5) Proofreaders
The AI's answer said that language models can be programmed specifically for things like grammar, meaning that it can catch errors.
As it can do this quickly, that means that it could also replace human proofreaders.
4) Bookkeepers
These concern tasks like managing and monitoring expenses, as well as making sure that business ledgers are properly balanced.
In its answer, the AI said that future models could carry out these tasks.
3) Customer Service Representatives
Yes, these could be when you're calling up a company to speak to someone.
Large Language Models can be used in triaging customer tickets when they are calling up with questions.
2) Telemarketers
Also known as cold-calling, the AI-generated answer said that these roles could be performed by an AI instead of a human.
This is because they can often follow scripts, and AI can now be used to generate voices to make these calls.
1) Data Entry
In the number one spot on the list is the Data Entry Clerk. This is a job that requires using a lot of databases and moving values around within.
The low cost of using AI software in this sort of task could mean that it's a job which is very likely to be replaced.
Topics: Health, Artificial Intelligence
Thomas Bamford