Artificial intelligence is becoming part of everyday work, from writing emails to analyzing data, but even as businesses embrace the technology, many Americans aren’t so sure.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that most Americans believe AI will hurt future job opportunities.
“I will throw my code into it, and it’s pretty quick to give me feedback,” data analyst Lindsey Perry said. “We’re kind of training it to be better and almost do the things that we do.”
A report from The Fletcher School at Tufts University estimates that more than 9 million U.S. jobs could be vulnerable because of AI. It ranks Massachusetts as the state most at risk, with about 7% of the workforce likely to be displaced. Boston is also among the most exposed cities in the country.
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Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, said the disruption could be broad.
“This transformation is a huge one. It cuts across so many different tasks and occupations. It cuts across every industry,” he said.
The industries facing the biggest risks include technology, finance, and professional services. The jobs most exposed include writers, computer programmers, and web designers.
Experts are saying technology can miss critical information in diagnosing medical conditions.
“Boston has a concentration of these kinds of tasks across the city, and the state of Massachusetts is reliant on these occupations and these industries,” Chakravorti added. “The paradox here is that every task that is augmented by AI is also a task that leads to high vulnerability.”
So what tasks are the most vulnerable? A team at MIT created an interactive tool that shows which jobs and tasks are exposed to AI. The nationwide map breaks down jobs by region and identifies which tasks current AI systems can perform.
Pierre Bouquet, of the MIT Work Analytics Lab, said the findings do not mean AI can replace entire jobs.
“Very few jobs are fully exposed to AI, if any,” Bouquet said. “AI can substitute for part of specific jobs, specific tasks, but it can’t fully substitute for a job.”