David Autor doesn’t come across as an AI optimist. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology labor economist is best known for his detailed research showing how technology and trade have eroded the incomes of millions of American workers over the years.
But Auter now believes a new wave of technology, generative artificial intelligence that can generate hyper-realistic images and videos and convincingly imitate human voices and text, could reverse this trend. claims.
“If used well, AI has the potential to help restore the middle-skilled middle class, the core of the U.S. labor market, that has been hollowed out by automation and globalization,” Auter said in a December 2016 national survey. This was stated in a paper published by the Economic Research Bureau. February.
Auter’s stance on AI seems like a surprising shift for someone who has long been an expert on the toll technology has on workers. But the facts have changed, he said, and so have his beliefs. Autor said modern AI is a fundamentally different technology, opening the door to new possibilities. He also said he could change the economics of high-stakes decision-making, making some jobs currently the domain of elite, high-paying professionals such as doctors, lawyers, software engineers, and university professors. , continued that more people could take it on. And as more people, including those without college degrees, can do more rewarding work, their wages should rise, lifting more workers into the middle class. .
The researcher, once called the “academic voice of American workers” by The Economist, began his career as a software developer and leader of a computer education nonprofit before turning to economics and focusing on technology and globalization. has spent decades investigating its impact on society. Workers and wages.
Auter, 59, is the author of an influential 2003 study that concluded that 60 percent of the shift in demand favoring college-educated workers over the past 30 years was due to computerization. Subsequent research investigated the role of technology in wage polarization and skewing employment growth toward lower-wage service jobs.
Other economists see Mr. Autor’s latest paper as a speculative but thought-provoking thought exercise.
“While I greatly admire David Orter’s work, his hypothesis is just one possible scenario,” said Laura Tyson, chair of the Economic Council and professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. the professor said. Advisor during the Clinton administration. “While there is general agreement that AI will lead to productivity gains, there is great uncertainty as to how this will be reflected in wages and employment.”
That uncertainty typically leans toward pessimism. Silicon Valley doomsayers as well as mainstream economists predict that many jobs are at risk, from call center workers to software developers. In a report last year, Goldman Sachs concluded that generative AI could automate activities equivalent to 300 million full-time jobs worldwide.
Auter’s latest report, which was also published in the research journal Noema Magazine, rejects the possibility that AI can completely replace human judgment. And he believes that because the demand for healthcare, software, education and legal advice is nearly limitless, these areas should expand due to lower costs as products and services become more widely and affordable. ing.
He said this was a “discussion, not a prediction” about a different path forward, and in particular is very different from the jobs apocalypse predicted by Elon Musk.
In the past, computers were programmed to follow rules, Autor said. They have been relentlessly improved, becoming faster and cheaper. And routine tasks in offices and factories may be reduced to a series of increasingly automated rules. These jobs were typically performed by intermediate-skilled workers without four-year college degrees.
In contrast, AI is trained on vast amounts of data: almost every text, image, and software code on the internet. When prompted, powerful AI chatbots like Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini can generate reports, computer programs, or answer questions.
“It doesn’t know the rules,” Auter said. “You learn by absorbing lots of examples. It’s completely different from what we had in computing.”
He says the AI helper, with its warehouse of learned examples, will provide “guidance” (Have you considered this diagnosis in medicine?) and “guardrails” (don’t prescribe these two drugs together). ) can be provided.
In doing so, Autor said, AI will not be a job killer, but a “worker complementing technology” that will enable people with less expertise to do more valuable work.
Early research on generative AI in the workplace points to its potential. In one research project, two MIT graduate students advised by Autor assigned office professionals tasks such as writing short reports and news releases. While AI has increased productivity for all workers, it has been those with fewer skills and experience who have benefited the most. Later surveys of call center employees and computer programmers found similar patterns.
But even if AI delivers the greatest productivity gains for less experienced workers, that doesn’t mean they’ll reap the rewards of higher wages or better career paths. It will also depend on corporate behavior, workers’ bargaining power, and policy incentives.
Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who occasionally collaborates with Mr. Autor, said his colleague’s vision is one possible path forward, but not necessarily the most likely. Acemoglu said history is not on the side of the whole-ship lift optimists.
“We’ve been here before with other digital technologies, but nothing like this has happened,” he said.
Autor acknowledges the challenges. “But I think there is value in imagining positive outcomes, encouraging discussion, and preparing for a better future,” he says. “This technology is a tool and it’s up to us how we use it.”
