ChatGPT is Already Taking Jobs

The Washington Post writes that 'Some economists predict artificial intelligence technology like ChatGPT could replace hundreds of millions of jobs, in a cataclysmic reorganization of the workforce mirroring the industrial revolution.
'For some workers, this impact is already here.'

Those that write marketing and social media content are in the first wave of people being replaced with tools like chatbots, which are seemingly able to produce plausible alternatives to their work.

Experts say that even advanced AI doesn't match the writing skills of a human: It lacks personal voice and style, and it often churns out wrong, nonsensical or biased answers. But for many companies, the cost-cutting is worth a drop in quality. 'We're really in a crisis point,' said Sarah T. Roberts, an associate professor at University of California in Los Angeles specializing in digital labor. '[AI] is coming for the jobs that were supposed to be automation-proof...'

The technology's ability to churn out human-sounding prose puts highly paid knowledge workers in the crosshairs for replacement, experts said. 'In every previous automation threat, the automation was about automating the hard, dirty, repetitive jobs,' said Ethan Mollick, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. 'This time, the automation threat is aimed squarely at the highest-earning, most creative jobs that... require the most educational background.' In March, Goldman Sachs predicted that 18 percent of work worldwide could be automated by AI, with white-collar workers such as lawyers at more risk than those in trades such as construction or maintenance. 'Occupations for which a significant share of workers' time is spent outdoors or performing physical labor cannot be automated by AI,' the report said...
Mollick said it's too early to gauge how disruptive AI will be to the workforce. He noted that jobs such as copywriting, document translation and transcription, and paralegal work are particularly at risk, since they have tasks that are easily done by chatbots. High-level legal analysis, creative writing or art may not be as easily replaceable, he said, because humans still outperform AI in those areas.
The article notes that one copywriter lost all 10 of his clients over the last four months — and though one later hired him back, he's now training to be a plumber.

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