Will AI Take My Job? — Two Reasons It Won’t Anytime Soon

This question is on everyone’s mind and as a person who uses AI heavily, has experience and access to some of the newest of the new, and a writer, I figured I had better write a book about it.

People are scared. And that is understandable. This is about the work we do that allows us to eat and have shelter. And I like eating and not being homeless as much as the next person.

I call it, “your job” but it could mean your business or your industry. And when I talk about “the AI” I am not referring to a specific AI program, but AI in general or AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) in some cases.

Here is the good news.

AI is stepping in to handle the repetitive stuff, the tasks of drudgery we all hate, and giving us the freedom to rock at what we do best.

The bad news is, for some folks, that is their entire job.

If your job is organizing ad analyzing data and moving those computer bits from one place to another, you have a problem. Because computers are already really good at that. They just weren’t that great at understanding fuzzy things until now.

But there is hope, even if most of your job can be automated. And we’ll get to that in a second.

Now, some folks are all like, “AI won’t touch my job, I’m way too important!” But they might be in for a surprise. The AI we’re using now is just the tip of the iceberg.

Today’s AI is the worst AI you’ll ever use... And it’s still pretty good. The next one will be twice as capable — and it’ll be here in less than a year.

Another 12 months and the next one that is four times as capable as today’s AI programs will be here. A few more generations of progress and comparing the future AGI systems to today’s AI systems will be like comparing a bicycle to a rocket.

Having some friends in the industry has allowed me to glimpse under the hood at some of the upcoming versions of AI programs and I can confirm that the advances are coming faster and more furiously than the studios can stamp out Fast & Furious movies.

I’ve seen AI do things that I feel are indistinguishable from magic and I have a basic understanding of how they work.

Reasons AI Won’t Take Your Job Anytime Soon

That said, the expectation curve is always steeper than the adoption curve. This means that people in the AI industry expect AI to take over everything in a couple of years, but it’s probably a longer process than anyone would expect.

Even if AI can automated a large chunk of your day-to-day tasks, how many things could you be doing to improve your job or your business, if you just had the time. The time to think. The time to be creative. What would happen if you had the time to get the right people in the room together to collaborate?

And, “the future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”

For example, I am sitting at a coffee shop in Nova Scotia. This town (the entire town) doesn’t have cable or fiber internet. Good luck having AI take your job when you can’t even get a solid connection to watch Netflix.

The idea that everyone everywhere has reasonable access to the internet, good data infrastructure, and reliable power is an assumption made by people in large cities. I know, I was one.

There is also the problem with the crumbling infrastructure in the USA and Canada. We are only a few natural disasters away from having a power grid that looks more like a broken screen door than a grid. When business continuity is disrupted because of infrastructure issues, disasters, and other problems, AI isn’t going to be high on the list until it can fix the power lines or patch the road to your suppliers.

There is also a trust issue — a LOT of people don’t trust a digital avatar or a silicon-based decision maker with their personal information, feelings, health, or finances. Some will. Some won’t. Some people still take taxis and don’t trust ride sharing. It’s human nature.

AI will likely be used behind the scenes in a lot of industries, but the idea that in 2025, everyone in the western world will be talking to a digital avatar to finance their house is absurd. There isn’t enough trust there and there probably won’t be for a long time, no matter how brilliant the AI is.

Unless of course, you can’t tell it’s an AI…

Matt Rouse is the author of Will AI Take My Job? and is the host of the Digital Marketing Masters Podcast.