Despite AI being regarded as disruptive - but maybe not in a bad way - fewer than 25 per cent of businesses report that it has led to job losses.
This is according to new research - based on a survey of over 750 AI-enabled businesses - and published by academics at the University of Warwick and the University of Sussex.
The study is the first survey of its kind in the UK devoted to capturing the introduction of AI and other new technologies in organisations and to be concentrated on jobs.
The report states that less than a quarter of companies believe that AI has led to net job losses since it was introduced - and a similar number stated that AI had created additional jobs. More than 50 per cent of participating companies said that they witnessed no overall change.
When compared to any other technology, AI was found to have a significant effect on job numbers as with the introduction of AI it is said to be 28.4 per cent more likely to be linked to job creation - and 26.6 per cent more likely to be linked to job destruction.
Dr Wil Hunt - Research Fellow at the University of Sussex Business School - said:
“Discussions about AI’s potential impact on jobs have tended to focus on potential job loses as AI is increasingly capable of automating complex tasks. And while there does seem to be some evidence of that, our research shows that AI is as likely to lead to net job creation in companies introducing AI as it is to lead to net destruction. While we can’t say for sure how many jobs will be created or destroyed from the research, it is likely that the automation of some tasks may mean fewer people are needed to perform some jobs, but that increased productivity may reduce costs stimulating sales and demand for workers overall. This of course is likely to depend upon the specific AI-technology used and what employers hope to achieve by using it. While our study data precedes the impacts of Coronavirus, adoption of these kinds of technology is only likely to accelerate following the start of the pandemic as more and more work moves online.”
Sudipa Sarkar - Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick - stated:
“Advances in AI have reignited debates about the impact of technology on the future of work, raising concerns about massive job losses. However, current evidence supporting this is beset by methodological limitations and there is very little analysis of what actually happens in organisations introducing AI-enabled technologies. Drawing on a new UK employer survey, our study reveals that organisations introducing AI have higher rates of both job creation and destruction compared to organisations introducing non-AI technology. The findings of our study also suggest a slightly higher association between AI introduction and job creation than job destruction, but the difference, when tested is not statistically significant. This implies that AI is equally likely to be associated with job creation as job destruction compared to other non-AI technology.”
This new study - receiving 759 eligible responses - plainly reveals what is happening within organisations that have specifically adopted AI-enabled technologies and allows employers to give a clearer picture about what is happening within a company.
Professor Chris Warhurst - Director of the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick - said:
“In the absence of a natural experiment and longitudinal data it is impossible to attempt to estimate the causal effect of AI adoption on employment creation or reduction. Instead, our research demonstrates how such a methodology helps understand the extent of AI use within organisations at a given point in time and is a step towards understanding how the introduction of AI-enabled technology can have different implications for organisations compared to other technologies.”
