Hearts & Minds: It's time to rewrite AI's job description

Entry-level jobs have fallen by a third since the launch of ChatGPT. Research from jobs site Adzuna shows that vacancies for graduates, apprenticeships, internships and junior positions with no degree requirement have fallen by 31.9 per cent. Among the hardest hit sectors are retail, IT, accounting and finance.

There could be other factors to blame, of course. In the UK, the increased cost of employers’ National Insurance, the rise in the minimum wage and the Employment Rights Bill are also making employers reconsider their permanent hirings. Then there is the prevailing global economic uncertainty.

It is clear, though, that AI is going to skew the jobs market with all the implications that brings. Elon Musk has said he regards the technology’s replacement of people as the biggest threat it faces. Protests are occurring and they are only likely to grow, and quickly, given the speed of AI’s advance and its embracing by bosses.

Which creates a comms dilemma for those developing and investing in AI. They could find themselves on the wrong side of the argument. How then does AI push back? By moving the narrative away from focusing on how many jobs it will save. To date, virtually all the attention has been on the efficiencies it will bring, rather than the good it can deliver.

The AI pioneer, Sir Demis Hassabis, is a strong advocate of this approach. At a recent talk, the Nobel prize-winner, Google DeepMind CEO and co-founder, said the genuine societal benefits were not being emphasised enough, in stark contrast to the building negativity surrounding job losses and the making of work tasks quicker. In his view, that is not what AI is for. It is what drove him to look beyond coming up with a robot that could beat humans at complex games like Chess and Go, which he did. His objective is advancing humanity, which is why this tech bro used AI to solve one of the greatest medical challenges: predicting the folding of protein into the different shapes that herald all manner of incurable conditions, such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. As a result of his application of AI, which he donated to the world, medical research teams are making leaps that were never thought possible. That is where AI’s proponents should concentrate their efforts.

The genie is out of the bottle and it cannot be put back. But it can be made more attractive.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.