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INTRODUCTION

Some people believe Artificial Intelligence will one day be able to do our jobs for us. But how likely is this? In the meantime, how is AI impacting work today? In this episode, Pippa and Phil talk about how AI might change the world of work, with Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, a book about how technology might change work.

TRANSCRIPT

Phil
Is technology taking over our jobs?

Martin Ford
We can't close our eyes to the the risks and the dangers that come with this technology, right? And I really think that the, the impact on employment and on the economy, as it has always worked in the past, is going to be a huge issue.

Pippa
In today's episode, we're talking about the impact of AI on work.

Phil
Hello and welcome to Learning English for Work. I'm Phil.

Pippa
And I'm Pippa. You can read along with this podcast using the transcript on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

Phil
Pippa, do you ever worry that AI is going to replace your job?

Pippa
Sometimes. I have seen some of the things that AI tools can do, and some of them are really impressive. Some of them are not so impressive, and I think maybe I'm still safe. I could still do a better job than an AI tool, but I know that things are changing and that the technology will get better. So I really don't know. What about you?

Phil
I guess it depends how it changes in the future. At the moment, I think I can do what I do better than a machine can do it. But next year maybe that'll be different.

Pippa
Yes. And there have been lots of headlines about AI and the things it can do, particularly generative AI. So this is technology that can produce new things. So for example, you could ask it to make an email that you've written more formal or to summarise a long report for you. And you can see how these things might be useful in work.

But are the claims about what AI could do realistic? And if they are, how will it change the world of work?

Phil
Pippa, you've been speaking to someone who's thought about this a lot, haven't you? Author Martin Ford.

Martin Ford
And mostly I spend my time thinking about the implications of artificial intelligence and robotics. I wrote my first book in 2009, so over 15 years ago, and basically most of my work has focused on the potential for AI and robotics to automate jobs and what that is going to mean for society and maybe most importantly, for the economy.

Pippa
Martin has written four books about technology and the impact it will have on jobs and the economy. As we mentioned, there's a lot of hype about artificial intelligence. So this is a lot of people talking about the things that it could do and being very excited about it. And I first wanted to get Martin's opinion on whether this technology will be as powerful as many people claim it will be.

Martin Ford
Undoubtedly, there is a lot of hype, and there are a lot of promises being made that aren't going to be kept. I mean, and this has been going on for a long time. Back in 2019, Elon Musk said that within a year he's going to have a 100,000 or a million robotaxis on the road. And of course, there were zero. And I think that there's always hype, especially around a really disruptive, unprecedented technology like AI. So what you can take away from that is, I think that a lot of things that are promised in the short run, when someone says it's going to happen this year, it's going to happen a few months from now, I would definitely take that with a grain of salt.

But when you look in the longer run, the implications may even be larger than what we think. And that's, of course, a common, almost a cliche that, you know, technologies kind of under-promise in, in, in the short term or under-deliver in the short term and kind of exceed your expectations in the longer run. And I think that's absolutely going to be true of AI.

Pippa
So I wonder if you can give us a picture from kind of your having worked on this, thought about this for a long time. What you think the impact of AI will be on the world of work? I guess first in the medium term, sort of the next five ish years, and then in the longer term, how it's going to impact our workplaces.

Martin Ford
What it looks like at this moment in time is that even though the general perception is that knowledge-type work is higher skill and probably requires more training, that's probably going to be more susceptible in the near term. So what we're going to see is, I think, a potentially quite a significant impact on white collar work. And we already have some data at least, you know, some of it is sort of anecdotal, but also some actual data suggesting that there's a particularly significant impact on entry level work. So in other words, young people that are just graduating from university and are looking for their first job, those people are struggling by many accounts. And so that's kind of the nearer term impact.

But I think my position has always been since I started writing about this, that in the true long term, you know, we're going to reach the point where most jobs can be automated. And that's going to be an enormous challenge for our society. And I'm not sure how fast that's going to happen. Maybe it's going to come quite suddenly, maybe it's going to come within five or 10 years, or maybe it's 50 years away, but I personally think that it's inevitable and it's something that we should start thinking about.

Pippa
So, Phil, if AI technology gets so good that it can do most jobs for us, this raises a lot of questions. Like, if machines can do things for us, will there be enough jobs for humans?

Phil
Yes. And what would we do with our time if we didn't work? How would we earn money? What would happen to the economy?

Pippa
Yeah, it's quite an uncertain future, and there are lots of potential problems to think about if this does happen. But what about now? We're not at that future yet. We don't know how good this technology will be. So I wanted to ask Martin about how people should be thinking about AI in their jobs today.

Martin Ford
You know, the best advice that I always give is, again, we're thinking about, say, the short to medium term, the first kinds of tasks, the first kinds of work to disappear are going to be more routine, repetitive, you know, regimented type things. So if you've got, you know, a white collar job where every month you generate the same report, do the same type of analysis, you know, the same kind of writing, create the same PowerPoint slides, you know, that that kind of work is probably already, you know, in danger.

The best advice in terms of white collar work is to stay away from that. You want to be doing things that are, non-routine things that are creative. So you're thinking outside the box. You're, you're coming up with something new, generating new ideas, building something that wasn't there before. And the second thing that I think is really important is to try to take on a role that really involves working with other people in ways that is that is fairly complex, right? That, that, that involves, for example, building relationships and, you know, think of a nurse who has to have empathy for, for patients, right? Again, those kinds of things, at least initially, are going to be harder for AI to do, right? Because it's kind of uniquely human. So you want to stay into those, those kinds of areas.

Pippa
Do you think there are reasons to be optimistic about these technologies as well? As well as the challenges that we need to think about as well?

Martin Ford
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I'm often perceived as a pessimist because I'm talking about, you know, unemployment, which nobody likes. But whenever I speak on this and I give a presentation, I always end by saying, you know, I'm an AI optimist. And the reason is that I think it's going to be the most powerful tool that we have, that we've ever had in order to solve the problems that we face. Right? That, that, you know, you're going to want breakthroughs in medicine and science. We're going to want to find solutions to climate change. AI is going to be an unprecedented tool for, for doing all of that. It's going to essentially amplify our intelligence, it's going to amplify our creativity, right? It's going to sort of allow humanity to, to reach a new level where we can accomplish things that, that we never could have before.

But we can't, you know, just close our eyes to the the risks and the dangers that come with this technology, right? And I really think that the, the impact on employment and on the economy, as it has always worked in the past, is going to be a huge issue that we're going to have to navigate through before we can get to that super optimistic future.

Pippa
Beyond the issues I discussed with Martin, lots of people have other worries about artificial intelligence. So there are worries about misinformation that AI might tell people things that aren't true. There are worries about bias, that AI is using data that is biased, and then it might therefore become biased. There's also some questions around copyright, around the kinds of material that AI is using to give you its answers when you ask it a question.

Phil
Yeah, because we often hear about the future of AI, it can feel quite uncertain and overwhelming. So it can be useful to think about the technology now and what it means for your job now. How are people using it in your industry? What could you learn to do with it?

Pippa
Yeah. And also think about your company. Does your company have a policy on AI? Are you allowed to use it for work?

Phil
That's it for this episode of Learning English for Work. Find more programmes about the language of the workplace on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

Pippa
What do you think will be the impact of AI on the world of work? Send us an email to [email protected].

Next time we'll be talking about office design. Can the place you work affect the work that you do?

Phil
Interesting. See you then, bye.

Pippa
Bye.

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