Microsoft researchers have found that people use AI the most for writing and knowledge work, but they provide some comfort to worrying white-collar workers, saying their work may change rather than leave forever.
Researchers analyzed over 200,000 anonymized interactions with Bing Copilot, Microsoft's AI search engine assistant. It summarises search results and provides answers rather than lists of web pages, similar to the AI overview of Google Search. They focus on measuring the applicability of generation AI to general work activities such as “acquiring information”, “communication with people outside the organization”, and “performance with the public.” The data was then mapped to a specific occupation.
Overall, I found that the answers provided by Bing Copilot are more applicable to professions that require at least a bachelor's degree. And they are most inapplicable to medical support and jobs that involve physical labor, such as agriculture and construction.
The project, which is described in a preprint paper entitled “Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Meaning of Generated AI,” did not attempt to answer how AI affects wages or whether it could lead to unemployment.
“It's appealing to conclude that occupations with high overlap with the activities that AI performs are automated, and that experience job losses in employment or wages, and that involve AI-supported activities will increase and wage increases. “This is a mistake. Our data does not include the impact on new technology downstream businesses, making it extremely difficult to predict and often counterintuitive.”
As an example, they cite a 2015 study that explains how the number of bank branches and bank tellers actually increased from 2015, which refocused on building customer relationships.
“Our research explores which occupations can use AI chatbots productively,” said Tomlinson, a senior researcher at Microsoft. Register in an emailed statement. “We introduce AI application scores that measure overlap between AI features and job tasks, highlighting where AI can change the way work is interacting and exchanging. Our research shows that it supports many tasks, including research, writing and communication, among other things.
The least impacted work
According to the paper, the top 10 jobs that overlap most with the tasks where AI applicability is expected are:
- Interpreters and translators
- Historian
- Passenger attendant
- Service Sales Representative
- Authors and authors
- Customer Service Representative
- CNC Tool Programmer
- Telephone Operator
- Ticket Agents and Travelers
- Broadcast announcer and radio DJ
The 10 occupations that are least exposed to AI include:
- Cutting Equipment Operator
- Motorboat operator
- Orderlies
- Floor Thunder and Finisher
- Pile Driver Operator
- Railway truck laying and maintenance equipment operator
- Foundry type and core manufacturer
- Water Treatment Plants and System Operators
- Bridges and lock tenders
- Edge Operator
Researchers say their findings do not mean that AI can perform all the tasks expected of a particular occupation.
“Many, perhaps most work activities definitely have occupations with proven AI capabilities and some overlap,” they say. “However, even with overlap, the task completion rate is not 100% and the impact range is usually moderate.”
As a warning, researchers observe that focusing on the use of Bing Copilot could affect their findings. “The relatively high prevalence of information collection may be due to Copilot's connection to the Bing search engine at the time our data occurs,” they observe. Conversational studies of the Claude model of humanity show a greater emphasis on computer and mathematics tasks, they say.
In any case, Microsoft Boffins concludes that it is too early to communicate how AI affects a particular occupation. But if you're looking for a stable, low-change career, you probably consider learning how to operate a pile driver. ®
