Berlin job scares? New Cures? boom? The Handelsblatt has viewed countless studies and spoke to Germany’s leading economists about how AI will change the world of work, research and economic growth in the years and decades to come.
Whether in banks, law firms or creative offices: the latest advances in the field of AI are triggering job fears in sectors that have not previously felt affected. The so-called “white collar workers” wonder if they will still be needed when algorithms can also take over intellectual work. In fact, this question is still largely unexplored. Reliable figures are rare.
Experts usually speak of a zero-sum game: Jobs have been lost, but new ones are being created at the same time – as with all technological revolutions of the past decades.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently predicted that just over one in ten jobs worldwide could be taken over by an AI within five years. However, most of the employers surveyed expect that the use of AI will create more jobs than will be lost.
And in Germany? According to the work environment report recently handed over to Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD), 3.6 million jobs will be lost in Germany by 2040 as a result of digitization. Just as many, say the 13 experts on the committee, but would also be newly created.
Economists are therefore optimistic to euphoric about the opportunities that AI offers for the job market. “Many routine activities can be replaced with AI,” says Monika Schnitzer, Chairwoman of the Economic Wise Men. For example, the creation of documents in criminal proceedings such as traffic offenses could be facilitated by AI and the proceedings could be significantly accelerated as a result.
AI could partially compensate for the loss of manpower
The challenge: Smaller companies and public administrations in particular still find it difficult to switch to digitized processes. It is therefore questionable in these areas whether they would use AI methods in the near future, says the head of the Advisory Council.
However, if that succeeds, AI will have great potential for the job market. “I think it’s entirely possible that AI can partially compensate for the loss of workers due to demographic change,” she explains. According to a study by the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research, the German labor market will lose at least seven million people by 2035 due to the aging population alone.
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The consequences could be best absorbed if AI can also be used for more complex tasks. Above all, the language program ChatGPT feeds this hope among economists. The AI can analyze and write texts in seconds. “Such technologies can perhaps also be used for non-routine activities,” says Simon Jäger, head of the Bonn Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
Whether it can be used on a broad scale depends not only on technical but also on social issues. “So far we have set few guard rails and have thus ensured that technological progress has contributed to the expansion of the low-wage sector with many simple jobs that are often standardized,” explains Jäger.
>> Read More: The Germans’ fear of artificial intelligence
One example is taxi drivers: “With apps for navigation aids or translations, the entry threshold for driving services is now much lower, which is why there is something like Uber.” At the same time, however, precarious working conditions have arisen there.
The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) therefore sees the most important task of companies in the further training of the workforce in order to prepare their employees for the upheavals. It is about taking employees with you in the companies and not optimizing people, but processes, said DGB boss Yasmin Fahimi recently to the Handelsblatt.
Science becomes more productive
In science, researchers report breakthroughs almost every week that would have been unthinkable without AI. In October, the Google subsidiary Deepmind managed to find a faster way to multiply matrices after more than 50 years. The shorter calculation path could save time and energy in the future. Deepmind also helped create the largest database of human proteins to date.
Researchers, physicians and governments around the world are therefore hoping to use AI to find answers to the major problems facing humanity. It’s about researching new models, materials and medicines – sometimes with enormous resources.
US President Joe Biden, for example, is backing AI in medicine with a $12 billion “Moonshot” initiative. It aims to reduce cancer deaths by at least 50 percent within 25 years. Others, in turn, warn of risks – such as the World Health Organization WHO, which warns of outbreaks of artificial pathogens produced by AI.
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“AI will also turn science upside down,” says Jens Südekum, member of the independent advisory board at the Federal Ministry of Economics. Simple data evaluations, programming work or visualizations could be automated. AI can take over parts of the work of scientists in all research areas and thus make them “much more productive”. But that doesn’t make scientists superfluous.
Schnitzer, Chair of Economics, sees it that way too. Machine learning could be used to analyze relationships in large amounts of data. “But you don’t learn what the reason for these connections is,” says Schnitzer.
Opportunity for more growth
Economists are hoping for a huge boost in economic growth through AI. Smart evaluations of energy systems can reduce consumption, road and rail control systems can make traffic flow faster, industry can use resources more precisely. The same effort can lead to higher outputs.
Overall, economists believe that AI has great potential to increase the productivity of economies around the world. “Initial projections indicate that AI will lead to massive growth in productivity,” says economist Südekum. In the long term, he believes that AI could increase global economic output by seven percent. “That’s huge potential.”
This is a great opportunity, especially for Germany. “Due to demographic factors, the German growth potential will shrink considerably in the coming years, simply because there is a shortage of workers everywhere,” says Südekum. Wherever possible, these gaps should also be closed by AI.
More: SPD and Greens call for an AI tax.