According to Anthropic, the company that created the AI chatbot Claude, it has developed an early warning system to monitor which American jobs are most vulnerable to AI, and its preliminary results indicate that many white-collar jobs sit close to the front lines.
The company’s latest study coincides with growing concerns that youthful job searchers may lose their jobs due to AI. In the face of ever-capable generative AI tools and recent layoffs at companies like Amazon and Block that have highlighted AI, older white-collar workers are concerned about their long-term job security.
Anthropic’s researchers monitored the gap between AI’s potential and how workers in various professions are really utilizing the technology. According to the study, there is “limited evidence that AI has affected employment to date.”
The researchers noted only “suggestive evidence that hiring of younger workers has slowed in exposed occupations,” suggesting that early concerns that AI is to blame for the rising unemployment rate among recent college graduates may also be exaggerated.
However, the researchers concluded that although AI has not yet had a significant impact on the labor market, it may someday have a profound impact on a wide range of professions, from lawyers to sales representatives.
There is a resurgence of interest in skilled trade employment due to expectations that AI tools would decrease demand for entry-level white-collar jobs. According to a recent research from Jobber, a software platform for service organizations, 77% of Gen Zers believe it’s critical that their future jobs are difficult to automate, with more young workers choosing careers like carpentry, plumbing, and electrician.
The most vulnerable jobs
Anthropic assessed a job’s exposure by comparing the frequency of a certain task across professions with AI’s capacity to complete it.
AI can readily replace some of the various tasks that make up a job, but it is more difficult to replace others. The researchers pointed out that while an AI chatbot could assess assignments, it couldn’t oversee a class of kids.
According to Anthropic, the “exposure” of a work is determined by the proportion of its duties that artificial intelligence may be able to expedite or assist with.
Here are the ten occupations Anthropic has been found as the most exposed to AI:
Computer programmers: 75%.
Customer service representatives: 70%.
Data entry keyers: 67%.
Medical record specialists: 67%.
Market research analysts and marketing experts: 65%
Sales representatives: 63%.
Financial and investment analysts: 57%
Software Quality Assurance Analysts: 52%
Information security analysts: 49%.
Computer user support specialists: 47%.
According to Anthropic, which cited data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), professions deemed to be more “exposed” to artificial intelligence are expected to grow more slowly through 2034.
Anthropic researchers found that workers in these fields are more likely to be “older, female, more educated, and higher-paid.” This is consistent with earlier studies that discovered women-dominated professions, such as clerks and administrative assistants, are extremely vulnerable to AI.
Physical skills are typically needed in the least exposed occupations. Jobs having the least exposure were bartenders, cooks, lifeguards, motorcycle mechanics, and groundskeepers.
