Survey Reveals Little Fear Among Employees Most Affected by Artificial Intelligence

Many American workers who are most susceptible to being replaced by artificial intelligence do not perceive their jobs as being in jeopardy.

Those workers, many of whom work in information, technology and professional services, say technology is helping them more than hurting them, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday. Those who are more exposed tend to be well educated, earn higher wages and are more likely to be women than men.

“Asian adults, college graduates and high-income workers were more likely than other workers to say they believe the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace over the next 20 years will help more than harm them personally in the workplace,” according to the Pew report. .

Men were twice as likely as women to be optimistic about AI, the report found.

Researchers define exposure to artificial intelligence as the probability that it will replace or assist certain functions performed at work. They don’t make a decision about whether workers will lose their jobs as a result or gain new ones, and they also didn’t consider the role of robots.

The existential risk to jobs is that AI can bring superhuman intelligence to jobs, but many don’t see a direct impact.

Artificial intelligence—including technologies such as ChatGPT and Dall-E—refers to a range of machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing applications that can replace or supplement human tasks. They can range from writing and drawing to customer service and driving a car.

While about half of workers in the professional, scientific and technical services industry have a lot of exposure to AI, only 14 percent of them say the disadvantages outweigh the benefits, Pew found. Similarly, tech and finance workers, who are exposed to a lot, were relatively carefree.

However, industries less exposed to AI, such as retail and transportation, were more likely to say that AI would hurt them more than help them. According to the survey, only 14 percent of restaurant, service and arts workers believe that artificial intelligence will be useful to them.