Artificial intelligence expected to have a big impact on white collar jobs

A new report by the Brookings Institution counters previous analyses showing less-educated, lower-wage workers would be most exposed to automation.

Better educated, better paid white collar workers will be the most affected by artificial intelligence (AI), according to a newly releasedreport by the Brookings Institution. The report goes against previous findings of Brookings’ and other research that shows less educated and lower-wage workers will be most impacted by robots. 

Stanford University researcher Michael Webb’s approach was to take the text of patents to identify the capabilities of AI, and then quantify the extent to which each occupation involves these technologies. Webb used natural language processing to quantify the overlap between patent texts and job description text and came up with an exposure score for each job.

Out of the 769 occupational descriptions Webb analyzed, 740 “contain a capability pair match with AI patent language, meaning at least one or more of its tasks could potentially be exposed to, complemented by, or completed by AI,” the report noted. “Importantly, this does not mean such tasks will be broadly replaced and result in work loss.”

Well-paid occupations ranging from market research analysts and sales managers to programmers, management analysts, and engineers, which are often analytic or supervisory roles “may,” the Brookings Report said, “be especially susceptible to the data-driven inroads of AI, even though they seemed relatively immune in earlier analyses.”

Other jobs that may be AI targets are agriculture and manufacturing positions.

“Whereas our and other’s work has shown that less-educated, lower-wage workers appear most exposed to potential disruption from robotics and software, Webb’s AI exposure estimates, and our analyses here suggest the opposite pattern: Better-educated, better-paid workers will be the most affected by the new technology, with some exceptions,” the report said. 

Brookings explains that because AI technologies have not yet been widely adopted, analyses such as its own “or those from Oxford, OECD [The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], and McKinsey have had to rely either on case studies or subjective assessments by experts to determine which occupations might be susceptible to an AI takeover.”

By contrast, several low-paying, rote jobs involving hands-on services such as in personal care, food preparation, or healthcare “will be relatively unexposed to changes from AI applications, at least for now.” Most notably, accommodation and eating/drinking services, and retail now join the health and education industries as being relatively immune to AI, according to the report.