AI could threaten some jobs, but it is more likely to become our personal assistant
BT recently announced that it would be reducing its staff by 55,000, with around 11,000 of these related to the use of artificial intelligence (AI). The remainder of the cuts were due to business efficiencies, such as replacing copper cables with more reliable fibre optic alternatives.
The point regarding AI raises several questions about its effect on the wider economy: what jobs will be most affected by the technology, how will these changes happen and how will these changes be felt?
The development of technology and its associated impact on job security has been a recurring theme since the industrial revolution. Where mechanisation was once the cause of anxiety about job losses, today it is more capable AI algorithms. But for many or most categories of job, retaining humans will remain vital for the foreseeable future. The technology behind this current revolution is primarily what is known as a large language model (LLM), which is capable of producing relatively human-like responses to questions. It is the basis for OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard system and Microsoft's Bing AI.
These are all neural networks: mathematical computing systems crudely modelled on the way nerve cells (neurons) fire in the human brain. These complex neural networks are trained on – or familiarised with – text, often sourced from the internet.
The training process enables a user to ask a question in conversational language and for the algorithm to break the question down into components. These components are then processed to generate a response that is appropriate to the question asked.
The result is a system that's able to provide sensible sounding answers to any question it gets asked. The implications are more wide-ranging than they might
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