Plenty of people have already lost their jobs or had their responsibilities significantly diminished following the rapid development of AI technology, but one man at the top of it all has revealed an unexpected role that could be near the top of the chopping block.
Fears surrounding the how artificial intelligence would affect the workplace became apparent almost immediately after the first generative tools like ChatGPT were released to the public, and have only grown worse ever since.
What initially threatened 'simple' data entry, writing, and service-based roles has now evolved into a full-scale attack on white collar work as a whole, to the point where even doctors are seeing their decades-long expertise usurped by AI tools.
Many rightfully fear that we're sleep walking into a future of mass unemployment, and those at the top don't seem to be particularly worried, but there's one role that could be harmed unexpectedly by the rise of AI.
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As reported by Fortune, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed that AI is advancing 'so swiftly' that over the next 12 months it'll be able to perform what's deemed to be 'complex' tasks, acting as an agent on the behalf of a user.
This is similar to ideas that have already been proposed by Meta and Microsoft where AI agents replace coding staff en masse with only a few human 'managers' left behind to steer the ship.
Alongside this frightening revelation, Pichai also revealed what job he thinks could be next on the chopping block, and it might surprise you:
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"I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things maybe for an AI to do one day," and while he doesn't outline the specifics of why that's the case, he did assert that AI will "evolve and transition" some roles instead of outright eliminating them, and that "people will need to adapt" to the dramatic changes.
He's not the only major CEO to come to this conclusion either, as ChatGPT head Sam Altman has also asserted that he "will be nothing but enthusiastic" when the day comes for AI to replace him, joining around 49 percent of CEOs surveyed by edX on this very topic.
Of course, the elephant in the room here for most people is that these CEOs will likely have earned enough from their involvement in the AI overhaul to continue a life of luxury – especially if they continue to benefit off the back of what automated workforces produce – whereas the average person will be far less fortunate.
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Geoffrey Hinton, otherwise known as the 'Godfather of AI', previously warned that artificial intelligence will only widen the wealth gap causing the rich to grow richer and the poor to suffer as a result, and it's hard to see a reality where this doesn't become the case if everyone is made redundant across the world, especially as 'universal high income' schemes floated by people like Elon Musk appear to be a little too good to be true.