Cross post from https://scalingknowledge.substack.com/p/why-job-displacement-predictions

Most predictions about job displacement through large language models (LLMs) are wrong. This is because they don’t have good explanations of how LLMs and human intelligence differ from each other and how they interact with our evolving economy.

Some of the bad, explanation-less predictions include OpenAI’s “80% of the U.S. workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of GPTs”[1] and Goldman Sachs’ “300 million full-time jobs around the world could be automated”.

Expert opinion won't get us far as the growth of knowledge is unpredictable. Stone Age people couldn’t have predicted the invention of the wheel since its prediction necessitates its invention. We need a hard-to-vary explanation to understand a system or phenomenon.

Job Augmentations Examples

Software Engineers: Tools like Copilot and AI startups are automating small tasks such as creating PRs or writing the code base for a game. Some might assume that this mirrors the industrial revolution's process of breaking down craftsmen's work into smaller, automatable units for SWEs. However, building a software company is not building an assembly line product. It is building the factory. The productionized unit of output is the usage of the software service. Engineers will always be essential for building the factory and maintaining the codebase, leveraged AI tools. Even if one model writes the prompt for another model we still need engineers to prompt the root of the chain.

Doctors: Google's report on Med-PaLM 2[2], an LLM trained on medicine data achieving 85.4% on a med-school-like exam, may lead some to believe doctors' jobs will be automated. In reality, only certain uncreative aspects will. LLMs can aid doctors in symptom analysis and diagnosis suggestions, but expertise in emotional intelligence and moral discernment for treatment selection remains vital. Medicine is also a physical craft more so than a digital one. A medical LLM bot could be used to provide emotional support and answer questions 24/7, but most will still prefer to talk to a human or have them look at their diagnosis.

Lawyers: LLMs can assist lawyers in researching case histories, identifying precedents, and drafting legal documents. However, lawyers are still crucial for interpreting complicated laws, pr...

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