There's a very big movement at the moment around understanding the deconstruction of jobs and work,
and what that basically means is breaking down jobs into smaller,
more tangible activities and tasks and trying to understand which of these can actually be
automated or be replaced by AI. So I think we have to talk about that component as well,
because otherwise we have this general saying of all jobs will disappear. I think work and
jobs are going to look different, but they will still definitely be there.
Hello everyone and welcome to HR Hot Topics, which is the show in which we talk about some
of the events that are happening in the world of work. And today we'll be talking about the impact
of automation and ChatGPT. Specifically, what are the 11 jobs that are most likely to be automated
in the near future? But that's not all because we'll also be talking about some of the jobs that
will be very unlikely to be automated through AI and some of the criteria that you can test your
own job with to see what the susceptibility for automation is. So, are you ready? Let's dive in.
*MUSIC*
My name is Erik van Vulpen. With me is Dieter Veldsman, and here are the 11 jobs
that will be most likely to be automated in the near future. But before we get started,
don't forget to like this video, subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell. So Dieter,
tell me what is the first job that you think is most susceptible to automation?
Erik, the first job I think, is if you are working in trading and market analysis.
I think that type of work can very easily be automated with intelligent technologies pulling
together a lot of factual information and providing those types of insights.
My next job is administrative assistant. I think when it comes to these more administrative roles
that involve a lot of data entry and simple data processing, these, uh, natural language models
that we're seeing in AIs like ChatGPT really are able to answer a lot of the questions that
you would otherwise ask someone to do for you. So that is my role, administrative assistants.
My next job, Erik, is I think procurement jobs. I think especially the process of
procurement in terms of comparing different quotes, drawing up criteria, I think AI can
play a very key role in terms of providing that information in a tangible way to drive business
decision making. So I think in that particular space, there are some great opportunities.
Another role that I think is very susceptible to automation is customer service reps. Take
for example, the ticket taker that you have sitting in a metro station that
is answering customer questions and also taking some payments. Most of that work
is very easy to be automated. You can just ask the computer the question “Is this the line to
X Station?” And it'll give you the answer. You don't need a person for that anymore.
I think another role, Erik, is going to be around logistics planning. I think
there's some great opportunity there in terms of automation,
playing a role around coordinating schedules, dealing with certain changes in schedules,
et cetera. And I think there's going to be a real opportunity there for automation on the one side,
but also intelligent technologies just to do that a lot faster.
I think we'll see something similar in journalism as well, especially if you
look to watch more entry level positions, people who are writing articles and reporting on facts.
That is something that an AI can do as well. Put in the facts and uh, the articles come right out.
So I think a lot of those content creation roles will be impacted by ChatGPT as well.
The next one, Erik, that I've got on my list, and I'm not going to be popular for mentioning this,
is I think some engineering work will no longer exist in the future. I think there's some great
opportunity there from a ChatGPT and an artificial intelligence point of view in terms of doing some
of the basic design work. Driving a lot of the work that engineers do currently. And,
I think not for all disciplines, but I think there's some real opportunity,
especially around some scale skills in engineering that we actually do need for future.
We're talking about more complex jobs and I think also jobs like auditors will be impacted because,
you know, auditors are trying to get a health check in the organization,
seeing if all documents are compliant with certain regulations. And now we have very
powerful artificial intelligences that can scan in milliseconds through thousands and thousands
of documents. And check their quality, check whether they stick to the compliance rules,
yes or no. So I think that is also a job where we see a lot of impact from automation.
Another role, Erik, that I think is going to change significantly through AI in future is
actuaries. And I think there's going to be quite a lot of changes there in terms of how we think
about risk models. How those calculations work and also about how we monitor those
things over time. So I think there's going to be significant change in that particular role.
My last role is payroll administrators. Uh, when it comes to paying and doing accounting,
there's a lot of data entry there as well. We're already seeing some
amazing interactions between a chat bot and the different software tools
that organizations are using. These relatively simple queries can just be done by a chatbot.
And we'll have many, many fewer payroll administrators taken care of that work.
The last one on my list, Erik, is I think people that work in quality assurance. I
think there's a great opportunity there for artificial intelligence to help with that
particular process. I also think the ability to pull together complex information and be
able to see whether something actually passes the standard in the mark, I think
that's going to be a real opportunity for AI and for automation in future.
Now, before we start talking about some of the jobs that will be very unlikely to
be automated and what the criteria are for those jobs, let's nuance this a little bit,
Dieter. Cuz we have been talking about jobs that are being fully automated, but do you really
think that the entire job will be automated? I think we look at that differently, right?
I agree with that and I think there's a very big movement at the moment around understanding the
deconstruction of jobs and work and what that basically means is breaking down jobs into
smaller, more tangible activities and tasks and trying to understand which of these can actually
be automated or be replaced by AI. So I think we have to talk about that component as well,
because otherwise we have this general saying of all jobs will disappear. I think work and
jobs are going to look different, but they will still definitely be there.
I think a great example of that, Dieter, is uh, web developers. Where you can now show
just a picture of a website and then for example, ChatGPT or another AI can create that website for
you. Of course, it's still not fit for purpose and there's still a lot of work that you need to do,
but that initial design may be very different from how you designed a webpage, you know,
a couple of years ago. And that's a, that's a good example I think, of how tasks are changing,
and it's not that that job is being automated, it is that those tasks radically are changing.
Erik, I think quite an interesting observation in our list is that we talk a lot about entry
level roles or roles that have typical processing type of responsibilities. Now, the question I have
really with regards to, you know, just because we can automate and replace it with AI doesn't
necessarily mean we should, and something that I worry about for the future is: where are people
going to learn some of these skills? Use the example of journalism that you spoke about. I
still need to learn some of those basics before I can become an investigative journalist, alot more
senior role, a lot more complex, not necessarily something that can be automated. So my question
is, how are we going to build these feeder pools for people to learn those skills on the job?
I think that speaks to an interesting question, Dieter, and also for some of the jobs, you know,
I was talking about authors or journalists that, uh, may be replaced. I think there's
other roles that will start to emerge. For example, being a proofreader and really
understanding the context of the audience that the audience is operating in becomes
increasingly important cuz a machine may just give you the text. But it's really about how do you
write that text and that language for a specific audience. So you may have less journalists,
but I think you'll have more proof readers that will take that input from the AI and really tailor
it towards the specific audience that your website is serving. So these are the jobs that are likely
to be automated. So how about the criteria for jobs that are unlikely to be automated, Dieter?
I think we're going to have to think very differently about what work gets done by a human,
and what work gets done by a machine, and what that's actually going to look like. For
me there's going to be three C's that's going to be important in all roles of the future.
The first one is Context. I think roles that require contextual interpretation. Creativity,
I think especially where people need to come up with new ideas and connect
previously unrelated concepts. And then Critical thinking. How do I make sense of
what's happening and the complexity around it, and how do I bring these different
parts together that might seem a little bit abstract? Practical examples for me. Roles
like public relations. I think there's a lot of interpretation that has to happen, Um, you know,
with regards to that. Strategy and leadership roles. I think business development type of
roles where there's a lot of human engagement and human interaction. And I think closer to HR roles
that work in things like diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, as well as in the
work and people experience. I think definitely there's a lot of opportunity in those roles.
So it's definitely not all bad news. Yes, ChatGPT and AI will make an impact on the way we work, but
it's really a complementary system. It is not that a job will be replaced, it is just that the job
content will change over time. So these are the 11 jobs that are most likely to be automated, and
you've also learned some of the criteria that will make your job unlikely to be automated. If you
enjoy this video and you want to see more similar content, like this video, subscribe to our channel
and hit the notification bell. That's it from our side of the desk. Have an amazing day. Bye-bye!