A.I.’s Threat to White-Collar Jobs

The Week in Tech: A.I.’s Threat to White-Collar Jobs Some workers may be more exposed to artificial intelligence than previously thought. But worry more about automation’s threat to less skilled employees. By Jamie Condliffe November 22, 2019

Hi, I’m Jamie Condliffe. Greetings from London. For one last time before I leave The New York Times, here’s a look at the week’s tech news:

The story usually goes like this: Automation is going to take our jobs.

But the reality is far more nuanced, and debate rages about which jobs will be automated, at what scale and where. For the most part, one thing is agreed on: Blue-collar workers who perform repetitive work are most exposed.

That might not be quite right, though. A study published by the Brookings Institution on Wednesday looks at the degree to which professions are exposed to A.I. by comparing job descriptions with patent descriptions of new A.I. technologies, a method developed by the Stanford researcher Michael Webb. It found that A.I. will be “a significant factor in the future work lives of relatively well-paid managers, supervisors and analysts,” including those in relatively technical roles.

Perhaps the most surprising finding: Holders of bachelor’s degrees would be exposed to A.I. over five times more than workers with only a high school degree.

“Lots of math, science, technology and business roles involve, say, operating a power plant to maximize energy efficiency, or running an ad campaign to minimize cost per click,” explained Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings and one of the study’s authors. “And these are exactly the things that A.I. is best at.”

Previously, similar studies lumped together robotics and A.I. But when they are picked apart, it makes sense that A.I. — which is about planning, perceiving and so on — would hit white-collar roles.

Still, workers needn’t panic. Carl Benedikt Frey, an economist at Oxford University who specializes in technology and employment, said A.I. was “more likely to complement people in those jobs rather than replacing them.” And Mr. Muro points out that “these workers are frequently the ones that companies have already invested in” and are likely to have been consulted about their futures.

Mr. Muro added: “I for one am a bit less concerned about the white-collar folks than the less educated ones stuck in dead-end service work or the gig economy.”

TikTok’s Reboot

I recently explained how TikTok is in trouble because the red-hot video app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is under scrutiny from lawmakers in the United States. At the heart of this is a big, untested argument that Chinese laws could force TikTok, in theory, to send data to the Chinese government.

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In an interview with The Times, TikTok’s chief executive, Alex Zhu, tried to assuage Washington’s fears:

No, TikTok does not censor videos that displease China, he said. And no, it does not share user data with China, or even with its Beijing-based parent company.

Mr. Zhu said he’d personally reject an appeal for data even if it came from President Xi Jinping.

And it’s reportedly trying other stuff, too. The Wall Street Journal reported that TikTok executives had discussed “rebranding it in the United States” and “expanding operations in Southeast Asia, possibly Singapore — which would allow executives to distance the video-sharing app from China.”

But it’s unclear how far such assurances can go.

“There doesn’t seem to be a way to assuage regulators in the U.S. without removing that ownership issue,” Adam Segal, the director of the digital and cyberspace policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me.

Google’s Staff Clash

“Don’t be evil,” it once said. But Google’s internal mantra now looks like it could be more like: “Don’t question the management.”

It has come to light that Google has ended its biweekly all-hands meetings. The decision was made just days after Google employees protested the interrogation of two colleagues by the company’s investigations team, according to CNBC. And it all comes on the back of a staff protest last year over the company’s handling of sexual harassment complaints, vibrant discussions on internal memo boards about company policies and pushback from some workers about Google’s work in China and with the United States military.

Then, this past week, it transpired that Google had hired an anti-union consulting firm to advise its management as it deals with worker unrest.

It’s still too early to tell how this will shake out at Google. But what’s clear is that the company’s traditional embrace of transparency and flexibility for workers is straining as more employees question its motives and actions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/technology/the-week-in-tech-ai-jobs.html