Will artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionise the labour market and make millions of jobs redundant? Or is there a tendency to exaggerate the impact of ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI?
A new international study published in the Journal for Economic Behaviour and Organization (see box) concludes that the truth is probably somewhere in between. Artificial intelligence is rapidly replacing jobs in some areas, but it also creating new jobs in others.
The main takeaway is that we are seeing significant changes in the composition of the labour market.
The study is based on statistical analyses of more than three million freelance jobs with different skill profiles posted on one of the leading international freelance platforms before and after the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.
"We can see that the demand for skills such as translation or copywriting and simple programming decreased significantly after the introduction of ChatGPT. But the study also shows that the demand for other skills has increased," says Ole Teutloff, who is affiliated with the Copenhagen Centre for Social Data Science (SODAS) at UCPH.
"The main takeaway is therefore that we are seeing significant changes in the composition of the labour market. But we are so far not talking about new AI technologies wiping out jobs across the board, making human labour redundant."
Overall, the analysis shows that the number of freelance jobs offered in areas where ChatGPT can largely take over has decreased by around 24% compared to jobs where AI is used as a complementary tool or has no impact at all.
The jobs most negatively affected were writing about real estate and 'about us' pages on websites. Here the number of posted jobs fell by more than 50%. Conversely, the number of freelance jobs increased in areas such as machine learning, chatbot development and more creative forms of text and video production.
The decline was particularly strong for short-term jobs of 1-3 weeks and for jobs aimed at freelancers with limited experience. According to the researchers behind the study, this makes sense, as more complex tasks continue to require human involvement.
Johanna Einsiedler, co-author of the paper and PhD student at SODAS, cautions against placing too much emphasis on specific numbers in the study, as the field of AI is developing rapidly. However, the overall trend is clear:
"We are potentially facing big changes. When we see the number of jobs available in the most AI-sensitive sectors falling by a quarter in just two years, it's obviously significant. And we probably haven't seen the full impact yet, with the freelance sector being affected faster than the rest of the labour market," she says.
According to the researchers behind the study, this poses new challenges for both employees and employers. Integrating AI into work processes will create winners and losers, depending on how AI technologies are implemented and what skills individuals have. Some jobs will disappear, and others will emerge.
Some of the most important skills will be the curiosity to learn and the ability to adapt.
Det er sket før, når nye teknologier har vundet frem. Men i dette tilfælde bør politiske beslutningstagere være særligt opmærksomme, hvor hurtigt det går, understreger Ole Teutloff:
”Det er en særlig udfordring, når vi taler om uddannelse og efteruddannelse, som det tager tid at ændre. Heldigvis har Danmark et uddannelsessystem med fokus på generelle færdigheder. Det bliver efter min mening endnu vigtigere i en verden, der forandrer sig hastigt. Nogle af de vigtigste færdigheder bliver nysgerrigheden efter at lære nyt og evnen til at tilpasse sig,” siger han.
Figure: Estimated labour demand shock by AI exposure category (relative to unaffected job categories)
The study ‘Winners and losers of generative AI: Early Evidence of Shifts in Freelancer Demand’ has been published in Journal for Economic Behavior and Organization.
Behind the study is an international group of researchers. In addition to first author Ole Teutloff and Johanna Einsiedler, both from SODAS at the University of Copenhagen, contributors include Otto Kässi of ETLA Economic Research in Finland, Fabian Braesemann of the Oxford Internet Institute, Pamela Mishkin, USA, and R. Maria del Rio-Chanona of University College London.
The study analyses freelance jobs posted on an international platform (anonymised) focusing on how the introduction of ChatGPT changed the demand for skills partitioned into 116 clusters. These were grouped into three aggregated clusters:
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