The rapid development of artificial intelligence has some workers fearing for their jobs, but early indications suggest the emerging tech might be a helping hand for many.

IBM’s Institute for Business Value found that 87 per cent of senior executives expect jobs to be augmented by generative AI – rather than the technology replacing jobs.

But concerns about the role of AI in workplaces is valid; already workers in some sectors, from journalists to tennis championship line judges, have been laid off and replaced by AI.

Aaron McEwan, vice-president of research and advisory at tech research firm Gartner, said the expectation that generative AI would mainly have an assistant role fitted largely with what had happened when other “disruptive” technologies had been introduced.

“Generative AI is potentially automation-focused technology; it’s generally a net creator of jobs,” he said.

“At this [early] stage, it’s a little hard to determine … whether it’s going to pan out that way.

“But based on the kind of impact that we’re seeing on work so far, I think the more likely outcome is that it will, for many employees, help them to become more proficient and more productive rather than eliminating whole classes of jobs or … workers.”

Some jobs to be ‘deskilled’

The impact of AI is expected to vary from job to job.

But some roles could be “deskilled” through further use of technology, said Angela Knox, University of Sydney Business School professor of management.

“It can be a way in which workers aren’t necessarily replaced by the technology, but their work changes and it can become less meaningful work; it can be a lot more routine and more intensive, requiring them to work faster and harder,” Knox said.

“There’s certainly potential for AI to make jobs more varied and more interesting, but the flipside is, it will … degrade the quality of jobs for some workers.”

With AI making some jobs less meaningful and more intense, Knox said regulation needed to catch up with technology and should have a role in determining how future work looked.

“We should be monitoring the kinds of changes that are occurring, the potential impact, and ensuring that appropriate regulation is in place,” Knox said.

Investment needed to ‘reskill’ workers

The IBM Institute for Business Value report found executives estimated 40 per cent of the workforce would need to reskill due to implementing AI and automation over the next three years.

McEwan said many workers had already taken it upon themselves to use AI tools to improve productivity and performance.

These tools could range from scanning through documents and allowing workers to search for only relevant information to transcribing audio.

“That adoption at the employee level is kind of happening faster than it is at the enterprise level,” he said.

“[That] tells us that employees who are curious about this technology can already see the potential that it has to make them better at the work that they do, and to use it to remove some of the more laborious or drudgery aspects of work.”

Although that may be music to the ears of organisations that are “deeply concerned” about the skill level of their workforces in the face of rapidly developing technology, the proficiency of workers in an increasingly digitalised workspace was “probably lagging behind goals”.

McEwan said employers should invest in providing the tools, time and space for workers to develop their knowledge of AI if they wanted to keep up.

“Based on previous approaches to [digitalisation], I’m certainly worried that organisations won’t provide the necessary training, and … the necessary time and space to be able to keep up with that,” he said.

“Employees need the cognitive space and the opportunity to learn new things.

“There’s a huge opportunity for organisations that want to really accelerate the impact of this technology to start thinking about how they get ahead of training their people in the use of the technology, and empowering them to use it in such a way that it helps them to do their jobs more effectively.”