Artificial intelligence and automation are seeping into our daily work lives, and office workers are among those whose jobs are being filled by machines.
Key points:
- Analysts have found that the jobs facing the fastest automation include retail workers, bookkeepers and receptionists.
- Many of the jobs being automated are dominated by women
- Workers are encouraged to improve
That’s according to new research provided to ABC News by an Australian education organization that urges people to upskill so they don’t lose their jobs.
Pearson’s research looks at the roles that are likely to be automated as technology advances.
Historically, much of the conversation around automation has focused on robots taking over factory jobs or even replacing retail assistants in the form of self-service checkouts in supermarkets.
Pearson’s data also shows the less obvious images of automation pervading office environments, including medical receptionists, accountants and personal assistants.
“Some of the key (jobs) that are most affected by technology are things like receptionists, waiters, bank workers, retail sales assistants,” according to Sandya Baratha Raj, director of data science at Pearson.
“And what’s interesting is that a lot of these roles are more likely to be dominated by women.
“Women are more likely to be negatively affected by technology than men.”
Take the job of a translator. A decade ago, many of Polaron’s domestic service employees worked manually for customers by listening to or reading languages and translating them into text and speech.
There is now a plethora of software including speech recognition that does the basics of its job. Many people have used a form of this in Google Translate.
“I think a lot of translators will become proofreaders,” Polaron projector coordinator Tristan Priolo told ABC News.
“They will be ladies, instead of translators.”
Seventy percent of Polaron’s translators are women. Some are older women who are less tech-savvy and able to keep up with the rapid technological advances in the industry.
“Unfortunately, a lot of our (translators) are falling behind because they can’t keep up or haven’t chosen to keep up,” Priolo said.
“The industry is competitive. And they can’t necessarily make as much money from proofreading as they can from translation.
“But having said that, they could do a lot more.”
Pearson’s analysis found that by 2032, more than 10 percent of the work currently done by translators will be automated, and many will be in female-dominated industries.
Ms. Priolo herself speaks Spanish and Italian. She trained in translation at university, but she worries about specializing.
“I would love to be able to do that (job). But I am concerned that there is no stability,” he said.
All of this comes as the Federal Government is holding a jobs summit on the future of Australia’s workforce.
Data already reported by ABC News has found that artificial intelligence (AI) technology is forecast to replace up to half of the work done today by 2030.
That’s because roles once considered too creative to be consumed by AI, from illustration to songwriting, are also threatened by rapid technological advances.
Workers worry that they have not received adequate training for digital advances
New survey results also shared with ABC News by industry body CPA Australia, a lobbying group for accountants, financial advisers and bookkeepers, found that one in two workers don’t think they’re being trained for the advancements. digital.
CPA also discovered that many roles are rapidly being automated.
Pearson data found that 13 percent of an accountant’s current work will have been automated by 2027.
Accounting work will be even larger, with 20 percent automated within those five years.
This is how artificial intelligence and software are deployed to do everything from legal declarations to complex court administrations.
Even the people who create the software that is being deployed notice that their work is changing.
Vaibhav Namburi is the founder and CEO of startup tech agency Five2One. His Sydney-based startup works with artificial intelligence that fintech companies use to help them approve home and car loans.
“This was work that was previously done by an analyst, an underwriter or someone inside the business that has now been fully automated,” he said.
His company is also designing software that can scan the Internet for publicly available personal information and then create personalized marketing messages.
“We basically search the internet to find data points about someone and create a personalized message that looks like you’ve actually spent hours researching them.” Mr Namburi said.
“And it actually takes maybe a second or two. It’s done by a machine.”
Again, that’s a job that could have been done earlier by the writers.
Namburi himself has cut roles at his company in this space, as artificial intelligence learns to play its roles.
“We used to have six blog writers. That (has) now been reduced to three,” he said.
“And those three basically handle the work of six, because their jobs went from writing stuff manually to just using AI to create content.”
“I don’t want you to worry about your work. But it’s definitely something you need to optimize for.”
CPA Australia believes that automation is not really a threat to the number of jobs. His view is that the trend is freeing accountants to do more complex work.
“Technology has automated manual and repetitive accounting tasks,” said CPA Australia spokeswoman Dr Jane Rennie.
“This has freed up professionals to do more strategic and creative work.”
Pearson also has this version with more administrative roles. However, his data scientist, Sandya Baratha Raj, urges people in these industries to up their skills.
“It’s about being proactive and understanding how we can use (our data) to make sure people have the right skills for the future,” he said.
Loading form…
Leave a Reply