These jobs face the highest risk of AI takeover, according to Microsoft

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• Interpreters and translators are at the top of the list.
  
• Physical laborers, on the other hand, are secure for the time being.
  
• Adaptability could become a key skill in the age of AI.
  

In 1988, the Austrian roboticist Hans Moravec pointed out that machines were able to easily handle many complex cognitive tasks (like playing chess and solving mathematical proofs), whereas they struggled to master even the most rudimentary motor skills (picking up a glass or walking across a room, for example). Nearly 40 years later, Moravec's Paradox -- as it's now known -- is truer than ever: Modern AI systems can perform a dazzling range of intellectual feats, yet we're still a long way away from roads filled with autonomous vehicles. 

This dichotomy is reflected in a recent report from Microsoft, which highlights the 40 job categories that are most likely to be replaced by AI. 

According to the report -- which has yet to be peer-reviewed -- the most at-risk jobs are those that are based on the gathering, synthesis, and communication of information, at which modern generative AI systems excel: think translators, sales and customer service reps, writers and journalists, and political scientists.

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The most secure jobs, on the other hand, are supposedly those that depend more on physical labor and interpersonal skills. No AI is going to replace phlebotomists, embalmers, or massage therapists anytime soon.

The Microsoft researchers used a metric called the "AI applicability score," which was calculated by assessing the different ways in which workers across job categories are currently using AI, while factoring in the usefulness of the technology in assisting with tasks that are essential to particular roles.

Before you start panicking about losing your desk job to an algorithm, there are some critical caveats about Microsoft's new paper to bear in mind.

For one, the research didn't analyze the use and impact of AI in general (which would've been far too broad of a goal), but focused rather on a dataset of 200,000 anonymized US user conversations with Copilot, the company's proprietary AI assistant. As the researchers admit, this provides a skewed picture of the potential for AI to disrupt the job market, since there are many other popular AI tools currently in use that aren't accounted for by the study. 

"Different people use different LLMs for different purposes," they wrote.

At the same time, their method of breaking down each job category into a set of responsibilities doesn't necessarily fully capture the full complexity of each role, which more often than not includes a complex combination of technical and "soft" skills that will vary from person to person. (AI will likely be able to write clickbait journalism in the not-so-distant future, for example, but it probably won't be able to rush to the scene of a recent terrorist attack or earthquake and interview people at the scene.)

Also: Don't be fooled into thinking AI is coming for your job - here's the truth

The researchers also note that their measurements of AI applicability scores shouldn't be interpreted as a foolproof prediction for how the job market will evolve as AI advances and spreads. They compare the adoption of AI tools across industries to the rise of ATMs in the banking industry, which, counterintuitively, led to an increase in human bank tellers as banks were able to open new branches at a lower cost and started prioritizing more personal customer interactions. 

"It is tempting to conclude that occupations that have high overlap with activities AI performs will be automated and thus experience job or wage loss, and that occupations with activities AI assists with will be augmented and raise wages," the Microsoft researchers note in their report. "This would be a mistake, as our data do not include the downstream business impacts of new technology, which are very hard to predict and often counterintuitive."

The report also echoes what's become something of a mantra among the biggest tech companies as they ramp up their AI efforts: that even though AI will replace or radically transform many jobs, it will also create new ones.

Also: Is AI making it harder for new college grads to get hired in tech?

In his 2018 book "21 Lessons for the 21st Century," the writer and historian Yuval Noah Harari argued that in the age of AI, when algorithms are increasingly able to perform the cognitive tasks that were once the sole reserve of human intelligence, the most valuable skill a person can have is adaptability. A job to which you devoted yourself wholeheartedly during one decade of your life might be taken over by AI in the next, forcing you to adjust course, learn a new skillset, and embark on an entirely new career path.

It's possible that AI could play a role in helping people practice that skill. About one in three Americans are already using the technology to help them navigate a shift in their career, a recent study found.

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