This post was originally published on this site.
Davis: If AI advances in the way our research suggests, it’s likely that among 800 occupations reviewed, 25% of current working hours are spent performing tasks that will be automated. This introduces augmentation—which refers to how AI may serve as a “copilot” to various roles, introducing efficiency to repetitive tasks, assisting with responsibilities, etc. That includes nurses, family physicians, high school teachers, pharmacists, HR managers, and insurance sales agents. For example, I have a colleague who was a fund accountant in the 1980s, when the work was highly manual and paper-based. We had essentially one accountant for every mutual fund. Fast-forward a few decades and consider the impact of the PC. We still have fund accountants, but they’re much more efficient, and their day-to-day tasks are spent on much higher value activities than manually calculating a mutual fund’s share price. Our research suggests a similar influence in the years ahead from AI. Not dystopian for the majority of the workforce, but something that unleashes potential boosts to future U.S. productivity, living standards, and growth.