From VentureBeat, March 23:
Whether by automating tasks, serving as copilots or generating text, images, video and software from plain English, AI is rapidly altering how we work. Yet, for all the talk about AI revolutionizing jobs, widespread workforce displacement has yet to happen.
It seems likely that this could be the lull before the storm. According to a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) survey, 40% of employers anticipate reducing their workforce between 2025 and 2030 in areas wherever AI can automate tasks. This statistic dovetails well with earlier predictions. For example, Goldman Sachs said in a research report two years ago that “generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation leading to “significant disruption” in the labor market.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “almost 40% of global employment is exposed to AI.” Brookings said last fall in another report that “more than 30% of all workers could see at least 50% of their occupation’s tasks disrupted by gen AI.” Several years ago, Kai-Fu Lee, one of the world’s foremost AI experts, said in a 60 Minutes interview that AI could displace 40% of global jobs within 15 years.
If AI is such a disruptive force, why aren’t we seeing large layoffs?
Some have questioned those predictions, especially as job displacement from AI so far appears negligible. For example, an October 2024 Challenger Report that tracks job cuts said that in the 17 months between May 2023 and September 2024, fewer than 17,000 jobs in the U.S. had been lost due to AI.
On the surface, this contradicts the dire warnings. But does it? Or does it suggest that we are still in a gradual phase before a possible sudden shift? History shows that technology-driven change does not always happen in a steady, linear fashion. Rather, it builds up over time until a sudden shift reshapes the landscape.
In a recent Hidden Brain podcast on inflection points, researcher Rita McGrath of Columbia University referenced Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. When one character was asked how they went bankrupt, they answered: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” This could be an allegory for the impact of AI on jobs.
This pattern of change — slow and nearly imperceptible at first, then suddenly undeniable — has been experienced across business, technology and society. Malcolm Gladwell calls this a “tipping point,” or the moment when a trend reaches critical mass, then dramatically accelerates.
In cybernetics — the study of complex natural and social systems — a tipping point can occur when recent technology becomes so widespread that it fundamentally changes the way people live and work. In such scenarios, the change becomes self-reinforcing. This often happens when innovation and economic incentives align, making change inevitable....
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