Is AI coming for our jobs? The potential for artificial intelligence to reshape the workplace is a much debated topic.
But it has very real consequences for people and their livelihoods. AI will make us more efficient, will make our jobs more interesting and worthwhile, we are assured. In theory, you are freed to do something more high level and important rather than be stuck in the misery of repetitive tasks.
To borrow the words of Mrs Doyle, confronted with the prospect of an automatic tea maker, maybe we like the misery.
And it will be comforting to know that AI tools aren’t quite there yet. Take a recent conversation I had with Gemini Live, Google’s conversational AI tool, about the potential for AI to take my job. It assured me that it was unlikely that the technology would completely replace journalists over time, although it was already being used to produce short reports. Instead, it assured me that it was more likely to change how we work than completely replace our jobs.
Then things took a weird tack, and Gemini – mishearing my response – started talking about the weather. So that was the end of that conversation.
For now, at least.
But it is a real worry for students who are trying to figure out their future career path. Who knows how many jobs that are available now will still be around in the future? This has always been the price of progress, but it feels like with AI, everything is ramped up to breakneck speed.
A recent survey by builders’ merchants Chadwicks found more than 60 per cent of young adults aged between 16 and 24 were worried about the impact of AI on their future careers. Three quarters said they were leaning towards a career in a field that – they felt – couldn’t be replaced by AI.
It’s not only young people who are concerned about the impact that AI could have on their prospects. More than a third of parents said they were concerned the technology would reduce the number of jobs that would be open to their children.
And almost three quarters of parents would prefer their child to opt for a career that couldn’t be replaced by AI, with sectors such as construction and skilled trades expected to be least affected. Medicine and teaching were also highlighted as “future-proof” sectors, prompting parents to view them as offering more future opportunities.
That could be more difficult than they think though, as AI becomes increasingly prevalent in the workplace. While companies were initially hesitant to embrace the technology due to fears over information security and potential leaks, the march of AI continues, even in sectors that seemed impervious to it. That includes medicine, where AI is viewed as a possible diagnostic aid, or a research assistant as the technology develops further in the future.
And there are other things to consider. Could AI be stunting our creativity and imaginations? A fifth of parents said they were concerned that AI would affect their child’s ability to create new ideas of their own, and just under 20 per cent worried about the potential for stifling creativity.
Incidentally, Gemini says that it’s unlikely that will happen, and ChatGPT said it has the potential to both enhance and hinder it, depending on how we use it, but ultimately it is up to us how we use it. DeepSeek, for its part, tried to “both sides” the argument, considering accessibility and pondering the ethics of it all – a process that took 58 seconds – before it drew much the same conclusion as ChatGPT: that we are masters of our own destiny and AI is simply along for the ride. So it seems the AI is singing from the same hymn sheet on this one at least.
And the big tech executives too, it seems. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg recently said AI would replace mid-level coders in the near future, taking over the tasks that are currently done by human engineers to free them up for more creative pursuits in their careers.
Meta isn’t the only company doing this, with Google already using AI for some coding tasks, and others can’t be far behind. Huge sums of money have been pumped into developing AI, and the tech companies are going to need something to show for it.
Finding a job that won’t be impacted by AI seems less important than making sure that children can navigate the technology safely and effectively, setting themselves up for a future where the technology is reaching into every aspect of our lives.
Irish education technology company Prodigy Learning is already making moves to address this. Its latest product, AI ready Skills, teaches children about artificial intelligence through Minecraft. It uses game-based learning to engage and encourage younger students, covering topics such as understanding AI, generative AI, machine learning and responsible AI.
Because despite the fears that AI will take our jobs, it won’t be AI that replaces you; it will be someone who understands AI who does.
In the meantime, take heart from DeepSeek’s answer to the question “will AI take my job?”.
“The server is busy. Please try again later.”
