AI & Jobs: A Starker Future Than Many Perceive?


AI is poised to eviscerate more jobs than some would have us believe , according to Rob Toews, a venture capitalist at Highland Capital Partners.

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Observes Toews: “The notion that, at its best, AI will augment rather than replace humans has become a pervasive and influential narrative in the field of artificial intelligence today.

“It is a reassuring narrative.

“Unfortunately, it is also deeply misguided.”

Adds Toews: “AI’s core promise — the reason we are pursuing it to begin with — is that it will be able to do things more accurately, more cheaply and more quickly than humans can do them today.

“Once AI can deliver on this promise, there will be no practical or economic justification for humans to continue to be involved in many fields.”

In other AI-generated writing news:

*Five Ways AI is Making Content Marketing Simpler: Brock Stechman, co-founder of DivvyHQ, offers an easily digestible look with this piece at how AI-generated writing and similar AI is helping make content marketing a snap.

“The most prevalent uses (of AI) are content personalization, predictive analytics for customer insights, targeting decisions and customer segmentation,” Stechman observes.

Increasing numbers of companies and organizations have been relying more on content marketing – the use of sponsored articles, videos, social media and similar content – to promote their brands in recent years.

He adds: “There are no shortcuts to quality.

“But these AI-powered tools can make processes, planning, and analysis easier for your team.

*Perspective: Getting Over AI Journalism Anxiety: Glenda Cooper, a senior lecturer in journalism at City University of London, takes a ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ view of the current proliferation of AI-generated writing.

Observes Cooper: “It’s true that there has been more focus on the potential problems around AI rather than the upsides.

She adds: “Perhaps the question we should be asking is: Why after decades of automation, are there still so many jobs in journalism?

“The answer: Despite 40 years of automation, journalism as a creative industry has shown resilience and a strong capacity for adaptation and mitigation of new technology.

“We are still a long way off from the scenario where a journalist R2D2 replaces a human reporter.”

(For an in-depth, 2021 look at how robots are replacing writers across the spectrum, check-out, “The Robots Cometh: How artificial intelligence is automating writing jobs,” by Joe Dysart.)

*A Call for Self-Regulation in the Era of News Automation: News outlets using AI-generated writing need to start self-regulating – or face future peril, according to a new report from mass media think tank based in Finland.

“If the media councils don’t take the lead on this, it will be someone else....

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