To perform a job well, it is not enough to know the skills necessary to carry it out. It is also necessary callus. “Experience is what makes work valuable in industrialized countries,” emphasizes David H. Autor, professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) specializing in labor issues. It is one of the characteristics that can make a worker earn one salary or another or can play a responsible role or not. At least, until now.
“AI has the potential to make human work experience obsolete, not simply complement it,” Autor warned this Tuesday in a talk on the economic impact of this technology that took place at the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, whose 50th edition is held this year in Santiago de Compostela.
“We must recognize that both will happen. Anyone who says everything is going to be great is wrong. Anyone who says everything is going to be terrible is wrong. We must be optimistic and pessimistic simultaneously. We must recognize that there are real risks and potential harms, as well as occupations that will be destroyed and careers that will be affected. Simultaneously, there will be new opportunities. But, in general, it will not be the case that the people who take advantage of the opportunities will be the same as those displaced,” the professor developed.
Author is one of the most influential economists studying how technological change and globalization have affected jobs and wages in the United States. One of his most cited works documented how Chinese imports were reducing the wages of a portion of American workers, despite the fact that the effect of that trade was positive for its economy as a whole.
The professor explained that something similar can happen with artificial intelligence. “If AI puts people back at the center of developments, by allowing them to do more skilled work, by extending experience among workers with less elite education, it will be a big victory. But I don’t think we can take that for granted at all,” he said. Furthermore, he added that “there will be examples that are just the opposite, where AI will make certain groups of well-skilled workers irrelevant, while superstars will become super powerful.”
One of the examples that he has presented in this sense is from the taxi sector. The experience of getting to know cities that human drivers have is being replaced by the ability to design routes taking into account real-time traffic from application algorithms.
In any case, Autor has warned that “it is too early to generalize” and that there is time to establish rails for the implementation of AI. “The future, as a friend of mine once said, is not a forecasting exercise. It is a design exercise. And we need to design policies for that future,” he said.
“I think this is a moment of great potential. I think we should be optimistic and cautious. Pessimists, recognizing that there is an incredible possibility of potential here, as well as some risks. The work is to create the future we want,” he emphasized during the Conference, organized by CiTIUS (Singular Research Center for Intelligent Technologies of the University of Santiago de Compostela – USC).
AI, in all sectors?
Jeremy Rollison, director of EU Government Affairs at Microsoft, was also present at the talk in which Autor participated. The executive has defended a more positive message than the professor’s regarding the impact that AI can have on the economy.
“Those countries and organizations that adopt AI most quickly will be the ones that benefit the most from economic growth,” he argued, a message conveyed by the majority of large American technology companies. Wallison compares AI to the arrival of electricity or the printing press, arguing that it is a technology that will transform “every sector of the economy.”
Rollison is betting on a scenario in which large technology companies are vehicles in this transition. “I don’t think any company or government can do this alone. We’re going to have to work together. That means a shared set of priorities, so there will be challenges along the way. “We don’t want to underestimate them, but we are really excited about the partnerships we are establishing with governments around the world, particularly governments in Europe and local governments,” he said, also referring to the field of infrastructure such as data centers. In spring, Microsoft announced an investment of 6.6 billion euros to build a set of these facilities in Aragon.
Other sources, however, allege that the change will not be so rapid. A report presented this Tuesday by UGT highlights that “neither artificial intelligence nor employment tech they manage to gain a foothold in the Spanish productive fabric” and that “84% of Spanish companies do not have an expert in new technologies on their staff.”
The analysis, based on data from the survey on the use of Information and Communication Technologies and Electronic Commerce in companies, carried out by the INE, indicates in turn that “7 out of every 10 Spanish companies have a low or very low digital profile ”, four points above the EU average.
“As for AI, although its adoption among companies increases slightly (up to 12%), this fact does not entail the hiring of experts in the field. Only 2% of Spanish companies have an AI expert among their staff, which leads to thinking that companies acquire Artificial Intelligence products packaged by third parties and without the possibility of their own development,” he highlights.
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