Every generation confronted by a new technology asks whether machines will replace workers. Steam mechanized production, electricity restructured factories, computers digitized information. Artificial intelligence has revived the question with new urgency because it affects all workers and all jobs, including cognitive work that once seemed resistant to automation.

Labor markets adjust to technology innovation and adoption not simply by shedding jobs but also by creating new jobs and by reorganizing and reallocating work. Some activities are automated, others become more valuable, new tasks emerge, demand expands in some sectors and contracts in others, and workers move—or fail to move—between occupations, employers, and geographies.

Electronic spreadsheets do in seconds what took an accounting clerk a day before they came on the market in the late 1970s, but while clerical roles built on manual calculation disappeared, accountants did not. In fact, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the profession will grow more rapidly than the average over the next decade. Even as calculating a forecast became cheap, judgment and expertise became more valuable.

While social media abounds with dire predictions about the impact of AI on labor, the United States is likely to have more jobs available in 2035 than today, but with fewer workers because the population is aging. While estimates of the full impact of AI on the workforce differ widely, our base estimate indicates that automation could reduce labor demand by the equivalent of roughly 36 million jobs, while growth in the AI value chain and the broader economy could generate demand for more than 40 million jobs over the next decade.

Our estimates reflect four factors. First, automation enabled by AI and other technologies could reduce labor demand, but not on a one-for-one basis, because automation of work does not translate directly into job losses. Second, the demographic backdrop and rising living standards could drive sustained labor demand growth in the “human economy”—jobs that are often harder to automate and already face or could face labor shortages. Third, the AI boom, combined with the need to modernize infrastructure, could increase demand for workers in both the “physical economy” and the “tech economy.” Finally, we expect AI itself to create new jobs that we cannot yet imagine, just as previous general-purpose technologies did. Much of this shift would occur within occupations, but roughly 11 million US workers, or about 7 percent of current employees, might need to shift between occupations to secure new jobs.¹

Read the full article here: