In the age of artificial intelligence, can we rise to the challenge of mass unemployment?

Timothy J. Peirson-Smith says we must heed the warnings of the potentially massive job losses that come with technological advances – not by panicking but by devising sensible strategies to deal with all the moral, social and financial issues

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Experts are predicting that over half of today’s jobs are “at risk” to AI in the foreseeable future, with only a minority of elite left working. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 6:05pm, 30 Nov 2017Updated: 7:05pm, 30 Nov 2017

Artificial intelligence is with us today and not purely as a term that appears in technology magazines and websites for geeks. Instead, it is an ongoing series of fundamental changes to our world that has the potential to alter most of the existing rules that govern global society.

Decades ago, AI and robots were introduced into heavy industry – in coal mines, steel plants and car manufacturing – resulting in losses of low-paid jobs that were bemoaned by manual workers alone. Today, however, AI and automation is not merely manufacturing muscle, but – thanks to the blockchain technology used for cryptocurrencies – it can also think, learn and understand infinite languages and respond instantly.

AI is already omnipresent. Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking foresaw threats beyond those to the working class, and suggested that the rise of AI is likely to “extend job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining”.

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The myriad of efficiencies and advantages of AI are apparent to business. AI works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. AI never takes sick leave and needs no overtime payments. But will it only be the middle classes that will be made redundant, and will supervisors and professionals be safe? Perhaps not.

Dragon Law, for example, is a cloud-based legal software solution established in Hong Kong. It and other such sites provide legal support through cloud technology. Further, universities today are restructuring law degree syllabuses, and others, to strip out case study learning as AI simply does it better and faster.

An employee walks past a sign inside iFlytek’s regional headquarters in Guangzhou. The IT company, which specialises in voice recognition, is collaborating with Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings on a network of health centres that will rely partly on artificial intelligence for diagnosis and treatment. Photo: Bloomberg

But it’s not only lawyers and their clerks who should look over their shoulders; doctors need to, too. There are numerous online medical consultation platforms that many people routinely interrogate before stepping anywhere near a surgery. Hong Kong’s trading floor recently closed due to AI-driven trades and many predict that 30 per cent of corporate audits will be done by AI by 2025.

So, if professional advisory roles can be taken over by AI, are we heading towards a jobless society in future? Experts are predicting that over half of today’s jobs are “at risk” to AI in the foreseeable future, with only a minority of elite left working.