The future of the workplace: will you be replaced by artificial intelligence?

   Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been developing so fast in recent years, from intelligent voice assistants to self-driving, from writing articles to drawing, and even writing code is starting to be involved.

In the face of this, many people are starting to worry about how long they will be able to do their jobs and whether they will be replaced by AI one day. Which jobs are the most dangerous and which are safer? If AI really affects us, what should we do? Today we will talk about this topic.

Will AI take away our jobs?

Whether AI will take your job depends on what you do. To put it bluntly, AI is best at those repetitive, clear rules, data-intensive work, such as assembly workers on the assembly line, bank tellers, telephone customer service, data entry, these positions.

Like many companies have begun to use AI robots to deal with customer inquiries, customer service positions that used to require several people to answer the phone, now an AI robot can handle most of the basic issues.

The same is true for finance, before the manual review of data and reports, now AI software can handle a bunch of data in a few seconds, but also not easy to make mistakes.

Manufacturing is also one of the areas where AI has had the deepest impact. More and more factories are using automated equipment, in the past dozens of people need to operate the assembly line, now may only need a few technicians on the side to keep an eye on the operation of the machine.

Even jobs that seem to rely on human labor, such as delivery and cab driving, are beginning to be impacted by AI and autonomous driving. Although driverless technology is not yet fully mature, once the technology breaks through, many drivers may lose their jobs.

However, AI is not omnipotent, and not all jobs will be replaced by it. Those jobs that require creativity, emotional communication and complex decision-making, AI can't handle at the moment. For example, artists, writers, movie directors, designers, these jobs, AI can provide some assistance, such as generating inspiration, to help draw a sketch.

But to really make a work that touches people's hearts, or have to rely on people. Doctors, lawyers, psychologists and other professions that require interpersonal communication are also difficult to be completely replaced by AI, because they involve complex judgment and human emotional communication, and AI does not yet have a real “empathy”.

Will AI make work easier or harder?

AI is developing faster and faster, and some people think it will make our jobs easier, while others worry that it will make the employment situation more difficult. In fact, the answer to this question depends on the type of career you have and your attitude towards AI.

If your job belongs to the type that can be easily replaced by AI, then you do have to be prepared in advance, because once companies find out that AI can do the job faster and cheaper than people, they will probably reduce the number of manual positions.

But if you can learn how to utilize AI to improve your own work efficiency, then AI will become your right-hand man. For example, journalists can use AI to help search for information, doctors can use AI to assist in diagnosis, and programmers can use AI to help find bugs. in the end, AI is not used to “steal” jobs, but to “optimize” jobs.

In the end, AI is not used to “steal” jobs, but to “optimize” them. Moreover, every technological revolution eliminates some old jobs and creates new ones at the same time. In the past, there was no such profession as “AI trainer”, but now many companies need people to train AI to make it smarter.

In the past, there was no such job as “data annotator”, but now AI needs a lot of data to learn, so there are people responsible for labeling AI training data. In the future, with the development of AI, there will be more and more new jobs, what we need to do is not to be afraid of unemployment, but to take the initiative to adapt to the changes.

In the face of AI, what should we do?

Since AI is going to affect the workplace sooner or later, what should we do? The simplest way is to keep learning and keep ourselves competitive. Those who are able to adapt to new technologies and learn new skills will have more advantages in the future.

First of all, try to learn some AI can not replace the ability, such as creativity, critical thinking, communication skills and interpersonal skills. AI is more intelligent, it is difficult to really do “innovation”, it can only imitate the existing data, and the real innovation still need to be done by people.

Secondly, you can learn some technology, at least to understand how AI works, not necessarily to become a programmer, but at least know its basic principles, so that in the workplace will not be eliminated.

In addition, learning to utilize AI is also a good choice. Instead of being afraid of AI, take the initiative to turn it into your tool. For example, people who write can use AI to generate a first draft and then modify and optimize it.

People who design can use AI to generate sketches and then add their own ideas; programmers can use AI to help debug the code and improve work efficiency. Those who know how to collaborate with AI will be more competitive in the workplace in the future.

Finally, it's important to focus on industries that have a promising future; AI-related jobs are definitely preferred, such as data scientists, machine learning engineers, AI developers, etc. But if you're not interested in technology, it's important to focus on those industries that have a promising future.

But if you are not interested in technology, you can also consider other stable industries, such as healthcare, education, psychological counseling, social services, etc. These fields require human interaction, which is difficult for AI to completely replace.

The development of AI is inevitable, it won't put everyone out of work, but it does change the way many industries operate. We can't stop the progress of AI, but we can decide how we respond to it. Those who are willing to learn, adapt, and work with AI will be in a favorable position in the future workplace.

So instead of fearing AI, prepare yourself in advance to become irreplaceable!