AI isn’t just a fantasy concept anymore, it’s everywhere and changes how we live in almost every aspect. This impacts us faster than we expected, especially when it comes to the job that feeds and keeps us alive. So, should we be worried about our career, or are we just overthinking it?

Is it true that AI is taking over our jobs?, reality check

AI and its impact on the job market has been a hot topic recently on the internet, as it becomes an essential tool that facilitates and helps getting the job done for almost every industry now. But does AI really steal our job? 

We can notice the change in many jobs in our life that no longer hire their workers, and started to use the generated AI instead. Self checkout system in most convenient stores or a call center in some airlines can be a great example in this case.

Although AI can be seen as automating tasks that steal people’s jobs, it’s also opening new doors in some sense. The key is to understand which jobs are at risk and which ones need to be adapted in this AI evolution.

It’s true that some roles are at risk in this time, but on the bright side, we can also leverage and maximize the use of AI to create new opportunities and create new markets and business models. This might pave the way to the new industry where we can create more jobs and new career paths just like the industrial revolution with the use of technology.

The Job that tend to be replaced by AI, let’s face it

Apparently, some industry that usually requires all the repetitive and structured tasks is already making use and replacing AI instead of human workers. 

This phenomenon might cause the fear of job loss as some workplaces, including customer service, manufacturing forces, retail cashiers, etc. are really putting both AI automate machines or AI generated tasks as part of their workforce.

Risky roles/jobs example:

• Cashier workers: Self-checkout systems with automated kiosks are now in use in many retail stores, and they slowly eliminate traditional cashier roles.

• Factory/manufacturing workers: There are many technologies like automation and robots working as a main force in this field, reducing the need of manual labor in these roles.

• Call center agents: AI chatbots to even AI as a call center agents themselves that provide the immediate response to the customer are now in use in many companies and industries.

• Basic data/fraud or legal analysis: AI can process and analyze data faster than human in a basic task with the AI-powered software. Also, their system can analyze the basic legal action related to fraud or any other basic legal activities.

These roles consist mostly of repetitive, predictable, and structure based work, and obviously AI can learn how to do it and replace what you do. This makes the mentioned roles at risk these days.

Things and Careers that AI Can’t Replace (Yet)

AI might be smart, based on what they can do, but at the end of the day, it’s still lacking creativity, human intuition, moral and ethical aspects, contextual understanding, and emotional intelligence. 

Certain roles, careers and industries still heavily rely on humans as their workforce as human expertise is something that remains important in most fields.

Why are human skills still relevant:

• Creativity: AI can provide content but it’s in a systematic way and lacks originality and creativity in human depth. Art directors, performers, writers or even social media campaigners are some of the jobs that need unique perspectives and are hard to be replaced.

• Human intuition: Some jobs like therapist, teacher, or child care require deep understanding on a human level and different aspects of emotional intelligence, which AI cannot comprehend.

• Critical thinking: AI can process tons of information but ethical or moral judgment is something that it can’t do. When it comes to making decisions in medical, legal, or political fields, human intuition is highly valuable.

The roles that beyond the capabilities of AI are mostly required human instincts and complexity in a human context. For example, it is true that AI can write a song, but emotion and originality won’t be there since it cannot replicate human craft and nature.

AI and The Jobs Opportunity

By the way, while AI keeps us thinking about losing our jobs, it might create certain new roles without us knowing in the job market.It’s all about Turning crisis into opportunity and the vision towards it.

The jobs that tend to emerge and grow in this AI era are those with the radical understanding of AI-driven processes or AI-related skills including AI specialists, Machine learning engineers, data analysts, AI trainers, etc. 

Take cyber security experts as an example, to explain the concept of the new job that AI is creating. With the use in AI automation is rapidly increasing these days, the risk in cybersecurity is rising at the same time. So, security experts in AI are becoming highly valuable and in demand, since they are crucial in combating this problem.

How to Cope – AI Impact on your career

But keep worrying about losing a job over AI doesn’t help! It’s also about us developing our skills and accepting the conditions of today’s job market and reading the current situations in the AI era.

This isn’t about competing with AI or machines anymore, it’s about us knowing the right way to work with them and to keep ourselves relevant by acquiring particular skills.

Possibly valuable skills to focus on: 

• Technical skill: Coding, AI training and ethics, Data analytics, programming language, and machine learning algorithms basics.

• Soft skills: Critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, problem solving, and adaptability.

• Interdisciplinary knowledge: integrating both tech knowledge and soft skills can open many doors for your career and role opportunities.

The Future between AI and Humans on this Issues — coworkers?

As we adapted and started to live alongside this AI technology, we started to realize that it can also benefit and enhance the way we work now and in the near future.

The main key is to know the way to collaborate and reap the benefits between this technology and human workers collaborating in order to create an impactful workforce in the society.

Example of AI and Humans collaboration roles:

• Healthcare: AI or any technology may assist medical staff by providing medical scans or analysis in some medical data, but final diagnosis still requires doctors with a human expertise.

• Manufacturing industry: many factories use both AI-automated machines in the basic workforce and still need human workers for more efficiency.

Ready or not, AI and many more new technologies are now here with us, but jobs won’t immediately disappear. Rather than fearing AI from stealing our jobs, we should see it as an opportunity to evolve and make the most of this new technology by integrating both AI and our skills.

So, what’s the smartest move? start learning how to adapt and develop skills that AI cannot do or replicate to stay relevant and be irreplaceable. The future isn’t about us against technology, It’s about us with technology. Let’s move forward, without fear of change.