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The new AI skills twist creates ‘middle jobs,’ making AI productive for less-skilled workers and reducing income inequality in advanced economies.
Copyright: imd.org – “AI’s New Skills Twist”
Generative AI tools promise to increase the productivity of white-collar workers. Along with more traditional AI and machine learning tools, today’s GenAI is already helping us with diagnoses, contracts, drafting, translations, transcriptions, and more.
But what might its impact be on income inequality? It’s not what most people expect, in my view. And that’s a good thing.
Consider: Rising income inequality in advanced economies has been one of the most disruptive elements of globalization and automation over the past three decades. Ever since information and communication technology (ICT) gave new, significant advantages to already-advantaged workers with university degrees, increasing income inequality has been undermining social cohesion – and even unleashing violent protests and paving the way for populist leaders.
However, the advent of GenAI presents a different scenario. With this technological advancement, I foresee a new skills twist favoring less-skilled workers, giving them advantages that will help level the playing field. People who think technological progress will only widen the gap between rich and poor are failing to consider what happened before 1970, as I’ll briefly explain.
“From 1970 onward, tech advances – mainly via computers – began to drive a wedge between white and blue-collar workers. The invention of the computer on a chip in 1973 was the cause, as university degrees became prerequisites for utilizing ICT effectively.”
Approaching the first skills twist
From 1870 to 1970, technological progress in the form of mechanization – with engines, electric drills, tractors, and so on – was essentially equalizing for workers in advanced countries.
Der Beitrag AI’s New Skills Twist erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.
