AI Impact on Employment: 2 Key Skills for Job Security

This discusses the potential impact of AI on employment & highlights two essential skills individuals should develop to maintain their employability in an increasingly automated world.

Glenn Burgess

Knowing about AI has become really important. If you can’t join someone for dinner & talk about AI in a smart way, you might miss out. This isn’t just for bosses but for anyone working in a place that uses AI.

AI is a big topic these days, & it’s changing how we do things really fast. Some people think it’s good, & some think it’s bad, but it’s definitely shaking things up.

For some folks, their worries about AI have come true: A recent report discovered that AI replaced almost 4,000 jobs earlier this year. We can expect more jobs to vanish as the tech keeps growing. On the flip side, AI will also make brand-new jobs—about 97 million of them, as per The World Economic Forum.

How else will AI change the world? That’s tricky to predict. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has shared his concerns, saying, “I’m worried about AI on a deep level. Existential worry means a lot of people could get hurt or even die.”

Many other experts have said similar things. These fears aren’t baseless — history shows we often pose the biggest threats to ourselves.

Setting aside doomsday scenarios, AI has & will continue to bring many positive changes to people’s lives, both at work & in their personal lives.

AI is giving individuals the power to be more productive & excel in their work, leading to better business outcomes. Most of us are familiar with the saying about the tractor & the farmer: The arrival of the tractor didn’t replace the farmer, just as the calculator didn’t replace the mathematician.

Keeping that in mind, AI won’t replace humans either. It will simply assist us in completing everyday tasks faster, more affordably, & with greater ease than ever before, just as we’ve been using other technologies for centuries.

Certainly, some jobs will change or adapt, & significant transformations are on the horizon. But I am optimistic that AI’s overall impact will be overwhelmingly positive.

To achieve this, however, humans need to quickly learn how to work more effectively with this technology. AI may not be a threat to your job, but there are several important things people should consider as it increasingly influences how we work.

Creativity & other uniquely human qualities will become even more valuable.

At a recent industry event, one of our investors had a chat with the technologist Eric Schmidt I mentioned earlier. He told a story about his friend who writes obituaries, & this friend was worried that AI might take away his job.

You see, generative AI is excellent at writing simple stuff or providing a starting point for more complex writing. However, it struggles with understanding the context & can’t write with the special nuance that makes human writing so unique & captivating. It can’t share personal stories, come up with fresh ideas, or know how to add humor to a eulogy, for example.

Crafting something as personal & meaningful as an obituary demands that special human touch. Fortunately for Eric’s friend, his job is secure for now.

But generative AI has taken over basic writing tasks, which means human qualities like cleverness, humor, & creativity are more important than ever. If you can’t write something better than a tool like ChatGPT, you might find it tough. Generative AI will challenge us to be more creative & focus on those valuable qualities & skills that only humans can offer.

We will all need to become skilled at creating effective prompts.

The emergence of generative AI has ushered in what could be called a second Socratic age. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was famous for stressing the importance of asking questions & believed that “the highest form of human excellence is to question oneself & others.”

Now, it’s our turn to start asking AI questions, & to ask them frequently.

But here’s the catch: to get the most out of generative AI, we need to ask it the right questions.

Throughout our lives, many of us have learned by having information drilled into our heads (thanks to the Prussian education system) rather than by asking questions. So, providing AI with the right prompts may not come naturally to everyone. Like anything else, it’s a skill we must learn.

The good news is, we’ve already been honing a similar skill for years: Googling. We all know that using Google effectively relies on using the right keywords in our searches.

Now, we must take this a step further by crafting clear prompts designed to generate the kind of answers we want from AI. Without good prompts, tools like ChatGPT can go off on tangents, giving us irrelevant information or even making things up.

As with any evolving technology, no one knows for sure how the widespread use of AI will turn out in the long run. However, we do know that it has created exciting new opportunities, increased the demand for real talent, & emphasised the importance of the authentic, human touch.

Everyone who works for companies that use this technology, whether they’re top executives or entry-level employees, should focus on nurturing their creativity & becoming skilled at asking AI the right questions. Their jobs could depend on it.

P.S. You can rest assured that this article wasn’t written by AI.