With AI surging through the business world, the question of how the technology will affect work, and the people who do the work, is unknown. But the questions appear to be taking some shape: Do humans have a magic wand that makes everything better — or everything worse?
The World Economic Forum projects that AI and automation could displace 92 million jobs globally by 2030, while simultaneously creating 170 million new ones. Goldman Sachs estimates roughly 6 to 7 percent of workers will face displacement during the transition.
One idea gaining traction among researchers is on the side of the good magic wand. The MIT Sloan School of Management has suggested that the new advantage is agency: the ability to arrive with the right question, the right instinct, or the original idea, and then put it to work using AI tools.
For the enormous scientific and financial research projects, the magic wand is defined, and limited, by the sheer volume of dollars required to accomplish goals. CEOs say they are spending millions to create the promised magic. And skilled humans still have to guide this tool.
For small businesses, AI has brought great hope. For a modest $100 subscription fee, the small business person with a problem has new powers. That person may have no money to hire experts, but they can use the AI to solve a myriad of problems. On the other hand, so can their competitors — and customers.
Human knowledge is still required. AI can propose a database but unless the human knows how a database works — and what they need from it — the results will not be optimal.
The skilled trades, meanwhile, are stubbornly irreplaceable, because their work demands bodies that can crawl under a house or hands to wire a panel. According to CNBC, demand for skilled trade workers is now at an all-time high, driven partly by the AI data centers.
