‘Creative destruction’ is one of the core concepts of economics. Identified by Joseph Schumpeter back in 1942, it essentially says that change is inescapable, and that old ways of doing things are constantly being superseded by new ones.
This inevitably means that old jobs disappear, but as creative destruction is powered by innovation, it also means that new jobs are created. It’s no secret that the biggest innovation of this decade is widely expected to be artificial intelligence (AI), so what jobs could AI create.
There are three key areas where job creation could happen according to a new World Economic Forum white paper Jobs of Tomorrow: Large Language Models and Jobs. These are ‘trainers’, ‘explainers’ and ‘sustainers’:
Trainers
Trainers are mainly the people developing AI. This includes engineers and scientists working on the large language models (LLMs) on which generative AI tools such as ChatGPT depend.
But specific roles in this area don’t just belong to programmers designing more efficient algorithms. Electrical engineers could see a rising number of opportunities thanks to demand for customized microchips to train and run LLMs, the Jobs of Tomorrow report says.
Meta is among the companies investigating custom chips for AI. And these more advanced chips could in turn start helping chip designers make further advances, according to Deloitte. It says chipmakers have created AI design tools that are already being used to make chips potentially worth billions of dollars a year.
‘Though they won’t replace human designers, their complementary strengths in speed and cost-effectiveness give chipmakers much stronger design capabilities,’ Deloitte adds.
Other ‘trainer’ jobs AI could create include systems administrators who are building server infrastructure.
Ensuring these systems have the energy they need will also be crucial, so roles in power systems engineering could also be on the rise, the Forum says.
Explainers
While trainers are doing the behind-the-scenes work on AI, explainers will be the people making AI easy to use for members of the public.
Explainers will design the interfaces that enable people to interact with AI. They can be thought of as ‘user experience designers’ for LLMs, the Forum says.
People old enough to remember the first PCs may recall having to type in a series of precise technical commands into MS-DOS to get their computer to start up. In a similar way, many of today’s LMMs are still highly technical, meaning they will need well-designed interfaces to make them accessible by the general public, the Forum says.
Explainers could be involved in making LLMs work with different kinds of user inputs. Some may work with typed commands, while others will respond to the spoken voice.
Other explainer work could involve creating LLMs tailored to particular tasks. This could lead to the development of personalized AI assistants, tutors or coaches, the Jobs of Tomorrow report says.
Sustainers
Sustainers will essentially make sure that AI systems are being used in the best way possible. There are likely to be three main types of sustainers, according to the Forum report: content creators, data curators, and ethics and governance specialists.
Content creators – Prompt engineering is a new discipline that involves writing text prompts to make an LLM produce the content a user wants. In the same way the words we type into Google dictate the search results we receive, LLMs need particular prompts to produce the required results.
Optimizing prompts will allow AI sustainers to rapidly produce in-depth content on various topics, in any field or domain, the Forum says. AI has the potential to produce articles, books, teaching and training materials, and even entire storylines for movies and television series – a fact that recently led to strikes by screenwriters in Hollywood.
Other job growth in the age of AI
No predictions can be 100% certain regarding which new roles may appear with the widespread adoption of LLMs, the Jobs of Tomorrow report point out. But it sees the highest potential job growth in AI and machine learning specialists in the coming five years, with possible expansion of 39%.
But it also sees growth opportunities in areas such as university and higher education teachers, with 10% growth – a fact also highlighted in the Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023.
Source: World Economic forum