How will AI impact the jobs market? | BBC News

0:00 Research suggests that seven in 10 workers are worried about their jobs and think AI will lead to widespread unemployment. Are they right to be worried? >> No. Are they right to be worried? >> Absolutely. are we going to start on that low? Yes. I have to believe that we are going to see unemployment rising in the next two to three years. Some sectors will see 20 30% unemployment. Unheard of numbers really. but that's not a challenge of AI. That's a challenge of a choice of the capitalists who run businesses that will choose to reduce cost by asking people to leave rather than increase the overall intelligence of an organization by empowering people with with AI and technology to to make people do more.

0:49 >> But is it not unrealistic to expect companies not to use AI to save money and and improve the bottom line at the end of the day? So the idea of saving money in itself is actually a very complex idea because at an individual level every organization wants to save money but if you if every organization in the UK or anywhere in the world would save money by laying people off you're wiping out the consumption side of GDP and and when you do that what ends up happening is that people will not have the purchasing power to even buy what you what you're making with >> because they won't have the income >> because they won't have the income. And so you know in a very interesting way in a ve in a very individualistic level you know a company may benefit from laying off people but at you know for the economy at large it's actually quite risky for the economy. So, Victor, tell us about you then because you have a company that you basically tell me if I get this wrong, but you basically employ actors to let you use their their face and their voice, I imagine, to create training videos and that kind of thing. So, they give their consent, but obviously that then means they don't have a job with you after that. They've just got that that one.

2:03 Job losses. Are you as worried as Mo? I think we'll definitely see displacement of jobs. >> Does that mean losses? >> I think depends on the timeline that we're talking about. I think if we look at a three, five, 10 year timeline, I think we will find things to do. I think work will change. I don't subscribe to the idea that businesses will just save costs. I think on the contrary, what we're seeing right now is that businesses will develop more products.

2:27 humans will change what they do. I think a lot of the busy work that we do today, we can probably replace with AI. But I tend to think that great companies today consist of great people. And I think in five or 10 years, great companies will still consist of great people. If you go back 50 years in time and you told everyone that most people's job would be sitting at a desk and looking into a screen, no one would believe you, right? We've gone through this progression many times in history before. And there will for sure be displacement and disruption, I think.

2:58 But I'm very optimistic that humans will find ways to play status games. we will do much more than we could before and I think there'll be a lot of new jobs in the future and I actually think that when you look at what is most valuable in society it is generally what is the most scarce and what's about to happen right now is that what has been very scarce which is software development numerical jobs analytical jobs that will be much easier to do with technology and I think the value of human relations and human connection is going to go up very very significantly the for a consumer consumer to talk to a human or business to talk to a human. I think that'll be much more valuable in a year or two.

3:38 >> I mean, we end up talking to chat bots a lot, don't we? When we I mean, >> so you think we're going to get less of that because at the moment it feels like we're getting more of that. No, >> I think we'll get more of that, but I think the value of the human in the loop, I think, will increase, but it won't be responding to if your package is on the way. It will be something that's that's more valuable, more creative than that.

3:56 >> Okay, we got a few hands up already. Let's hear the man in the white t-shirt in the middle. I'm hedging my bets personally purely because you know people like Sam Alman came out recently in the past few days and he did say predictions that he previously made around job losses and things he's kind of rolling back on them. So it feels as as though there still we're clearly going through a massive period of change and there's lots of uncertainty. but it feels as though you know it the ink isn't dry yet.

4:30 There's still kind of like decisions to be made on where the future goes and you know whether there are as big a job losses as they say. >> Well let's talk there there are as you know when you come along be part of our audience we we talk to you at some length about your experiences as well as your politics and everything else and there's a few people I particularly wanted to talk to. So Richard, Richard Gagan, you're here at the front. So we're talking about job losses. There's also been a report out today about young people not in education, employment or training, quite how bad the job market is. So what's what's your experience?

5:05 >> Yeah. So I just graduated like two weeks ago with a degree in computer science and I've been specifically applying for kind of software engineering roles. So so far I'd say I've applied to over 150 positions and >> 150 Yeah, I've got friends and I know people online applying for like hundreds of positions globally. It's sort of >> because like these companies are using AI to replace software engineering like entry- level roles. it means that it's really hard and like really competitive to get these roles out of university and I feel like this is just going to keep going forward as these AI companies develop better and better tools like Yeah. So, how does that make you feel about your future job prospects?

5:52 >> I mean, obviously like I I started back in 2022. I had like sort of no idea that I mean, none of us said that this AI bubble would kind of boom. so kind of software engineering say it's probably like the primarily primary career path people would take like coming out of a computer science degree. So now it feels like that career is sort of not safe at all and in 20 years time I feel like even like 10 years time I feel like it might not even exist at all. So now I've got to feel like >> you got to start and find something else or Yeah.

6:21 >> So So Laura, are how right are people to be worried about job losses? >> I I I mean I I think it's a very reasonable thing to worry about and we we have seen. So the the gentleman in the white shirt made a really good point. There's a very big difference between predicting the future, which we've got lots of data and evidence that show that humans are really bad at and in fact that experts are worse than people that know nothing about it.

6:48 >> So I'm always Yes. have to be careful what you ask people. Future prediction is very tricky. >> Well, what about the question our audience is asking which research suggests seven and 10 workers are worried about their jobs. Are they right to be worried? >> They they are. So I think we we have seen, you know, without predicting the future, a genuine collapse in the job market for the younger people that isn't necessarily borne out for people further on in their careers. I think there's been a a 16% decline in entry- level jobs since chaptt came out. Not all necessarily because of that. I think I saw 28% of graduate jobs sort of in the past year or so. So you're looking at something that is currently a real problem. And we have all these lovely predictions that say, you know, by 2030 there'll be 170 million new jobs and the loss of 92 million old jobs and that people need to transition. So you've got two problems, you know, is that right and all of these new jobs will be created. And then secondly, you know, do you keep the education system up and do you have a place for these people who are caught in that transition point which is happening right now? So I don't know the answer, but I think yes, it's a very reasonable thing to worry about.

7:55 man there in the with the white shirt with the glasses. Yeah. >> >> I think on the new technology coming in a couple of examples I've come across. The first one was was when spreadsheets came out. Initially I think suspicion was that accountants would go out of work but in fact as opposed to them the summing stuff they to add a great deal more value and there are more of accountants and you also if you look at agriculture years ago the whole base of the US used to be involved in in in in the fields whereas now only 3 percentile but there's far more productivity which allows people to go and do different things so I think ultimately if we can use technology and you know and and then sort of develop ourselves we'll be better for it. Okay, a woman there in the blue top.

8:36 >> Thank you. I I agree with what the panel said so far about kind of jobs and and I'm aware that there will be some jobs that that AI may take. I think I'm concerned about the routine jobs that AI will likely replace are what help us build the experience to be competent entry level jobs. >> Yeah, I I use AI in my job, but I'm able to critique it because I have the knowledge and skills in the area that I'm trying to use it for. If we fast forward 10 years and a cohort of students have just got used to producing things with AI without the competence to be able to critique it, challenge it or anything like that, they're not going to they're not going to be able to use it properly.

9:16 >> Well, we've got someone in the audience, Charles, you're at the front here, and you've got direct experience. You you run your own company, I believe, and you've been using AI to be able to kind of reduce the workforce. Just tell us a bit about that. Well, we haven't reduced a lot because at this stage we're experimenting with vast amounts of AI. We see the technology capable to do so much that we don't we can't fathom how far we can go with it. So, we're in a phase of experimentation. I would say over 90% of what we try doesn't really work yet. We can imagine in a few years it might some things can be immediately applied and it might reduce jobs. Now, that has happened >> and that has that's that's happened with you. has happened with us and it will continue to happen to everybody in the industry because it's such an obvious use case but very few today.

9:59 >> What we can't understand very well is how many new opportunities it will create but we know there will be but it's hard for us to see them yet. >> So we're in an experimentation phase. It's actually adding costs to us today than reducing costs. There's a little bit of reduction and a lot of experimentation which is expensive. The expectation is in the next two or three years those will yield new new services or new opportunities. How we exploit those is still nebulous but I think the point was made earlier we are very bad at predicting but we're very good at experimenting and that's the phase we're in now. So, so Darren, one thing that struck me about what Mo had to say, what's clear, we we don't know what's coming exactly, but you've got job. I mean, there there are jobs being laid off. You've got Standard Chartered, it's down 8,000 people. BT predicts 55,000 fewer employees by the end of the decade. Got Amazon already got rid of 14,000. It's it's got something like 16,000 more to come. Whether that's all AI or not is not apparent, but certainly AI is being laid at the door of some if not all of those. And one thing that Mo mentioned was if people aren't working, who's going to be paying the taxes and paying for all the services that we use?

11:13 Now, is this something you're even thinking about? >> It is, and it's it's deeply personal and political as well as an interest for government. So as a as a Labour Party politician, our kind of mission of sharing power, wealth, and opportunity amongst the many and not the few is, I would argue, more relevant today than it was when my party was created to represent the interest of workers at the start of the 20th century. And the reason I say that is because the UK economy is around 80% services. And the service industry jobs are the ones that are the most at risk of the large language models and frontier AI tools that are being developed. So the challenge for us as political leaders and the challenge for all of us as a country that relies on creating our wealth from the service industry is how do we shape this technology in the interests of the British economy and the British people as opposed to just allowing the market to rip through to take away jobs and to extract wealth from the UK and send it predominantly to US big tech companies. So what what are you coming up with because I mean there are so many unknowns in this particular topic but if if and this is happening at an exponential rate so you need to be thinking fast you need to be thinking now so so >> do you have any solutions >> the government is working on a whole range of issues one of them is around training and skills support so are we giving young people the skills and degrees and technical training that's best suited to the modern economy coming out of the education system or do we need to work with those providers to make sure that you're not having to go back and think a second time about what you might want to be.

12:56 >> Darren, what about this bigger point that if if there are few people in work, you're going to get fewer taxes paid and you're going to have less of an income as a nation. What are you going to do about that if that comes to pass? >> That can't come to pass because the math just doesn't add up for us as a as a country. We're already an aging population with fewer people paying tax in work and higher demand on public services. So, we've got to do two things. We've got to make sure we create wealth in the UK that is reinvested back into the UK. But on public services, we've also got to use things like AI to make sure that we can provide better services more efficiently at a lower cost to achieve better outcomes to people that want to use them more. So you >> that's all things that you want to do, but I haven't heard you how you going to do it.

13:35 >> Well, we're doing a number of these things things already. So on public services, for example, we are creating the technology so that you can log in and prove who you are into the gov.uk app. so that we can help you get access to services more efficiently than being on the phone or waiting for a letter to come through the post. The big message here is that this can be a huge threat to the UK economy and it's right that people worry about that, but it can also be an enormous opportunity for Britain. We've seized the benefits of industrial revolutions in the past. We have huge strengths and assets here in the UK to be able to seize them again, but you need political leaders. You need business leaders working in partnership with us. And we need each and every worker in this country and young person in this country to be given the skills to step up into this national endeavor.

14:17 >> Julia, >> I completely understand why people would be worried, but as we've heard from the panel, there's a real range of quite differing scenarios about how this plays out and that and actually the early evidence is quite mixed on this. The gentleman in the audience talked about how he's applying AI, but actually not very clear yet how it's going to make a difference to his business. And actually a lot of companies which have been encouraged to use AI to transform their internal systems are finding it's not giving them the productivity gains that they had anticipated and now the cost of tokens is going up then the relative cost versus humans is actually a slightly different calculation now and I think one of the obvious own goals from the government on this is that it has made the employment of humans more expensive and added a lot of regulation and comp complexity to that and that has made it very difficult particularly when it comes to young people. People do not want to take the risk of employing a young person and I think this is going to prove to be a real mistake not just from the government but from companies themselves about not building that talent pipeline.

15:21 >> But Julia in fairness and and we've talked a lot on this program over many weeks and months about the arguments going backwards and forwards about whether the the government putting increasing employers national insurance is a good or a bad thing. But just looking big picture for a minute because in one sense there is a juggernaut coming our way which is AI which could eradicate a lot of jobs >> or might possibly create new ones we don't know.

15:46 So what's happening now in terms of employers national is that not just tinkering around the edge in terms of the difference that is >> I don't think so I think if you view it as a collective Fiona if I government you've got to give businesses the tools to win the race right and labor is increasing the cost cost of employing people it's increasing the cost of energy so that these tech companies can't base themselves here it's creating regulatory uncertainty it's doing a very bad job at applying AI within government so the cost of government is increasing.

16:16 There've been 8,000 more civil servants under Labor than previously. They've undone a lot of the great AI tools that Laura was building when she was in government. So, I think that lots of people are going to lose their jobs and if so, what do you what would you do? >> Any responsible politician has to be worried about that scenario. And so what would you suggest doing about it? >> Well, I say I would give companies the tools to win to make sure that they are growing as companies and they are able to base themselves in this country that they are not looking at other countries, other jurisdictions. You can't wish away this technology, but you can try and build a really strong ecosystem in this country and I think on those basic fundamentals, Labour's getting a lot of things wrong.

16:55 >> Okay. And that you wanted to come in there. I think >> I I I think that's spot on to be honest. the only answer you have is to keep growing the economy in ways where more people will have jobs. Now AI just to to answer the gentleman in in the white t-shirt the there is a very big difference between technology of the past which was a tool. We were building tools that people could use. If you're a taxi driver and we give you a navigation system, you may be able to do your job a little better. you know an an AI which replaces that altogether a self-driving car will not even need the driver in the first place. Having said that, we live in the era of augmented intelligence. So we haven't yet gone to an era where AI can replace everything, but it can make every single person smarter. And I think the biggest challenge if we talk about the UK economy, and I have no no right to comment on that, is that you're outsourcing AI to other economies instead of building stuff within your economy that can create more jobs.

17:56 You're basically giving it all away across the Atlantic to the other side. And that's a massive massive risk. >> The end goal. >> Okay, I'm gonna I want to move on. Did you >> Can I come back just very quickly on one of Julie's points? I I would just say that making it easier to sack people and not protect workers in this environment is the complete opposite of what we should be doing. So I'm very happy to defend our employment rights legislation, but I just say as well politically there was a whole list of things there we can agree and disagree on. Actually political parties need to come together on this issue because it is a big issue facing our country and Britain will either rise or fall if we get this right or wrong. So we need to get beyond the traditional political bickering and come together with a strategy that can be advanced.

18:37 >> It's an important critique to make Darren and it's one that Tony Blair made of your government this week and and it's important that we get it right. You're getting the basics right. >> Let me move on. This is a huge topic and I want to try and at least touch the sides of