A paradigm shift around the corner is typically met with both excitement and unease. We are witnessing one such shift in the world of computing, with the progress of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of Large Language Models (LLM).
With access to vast amounts of data and massive computing facilities, newly-generated LLMs such as ChatGPT have shown potential in assisting users with few tasks. For obvious reasons, this has raised concerns across sections of the society, a common refrain being job cuts.
The popular adage that the only thing persistent is change holds true here. The current possibilities of AI are going to generate opportunities and the workforce across different industries need not feel alarmed by it. We need to embrace AI and upskill in order to learn the ways the new AI enabled-tools can enhance creativity, productivity and safety.
The adoption of these AI-enabled tools will automatically open up opportunities for AI skill-trainers. This AI skillset training is not just for software engineers but for other professions too such as human resources, office assistants, accountants, doctors and lawyers.
We are already witnessing a demand in AI up-skilling courses in the form of certifications and workshops being conducted by both academia and industry.
Moving forward, there will be demand for experts in the AI domain. These professionals will be advising small and large organisations regarding the areas in which they can deploy AI-enabled tools.
As a developing country, we have seen the adoption of digital technology in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME). A popular example is MSME businesses using accounting software platforms such as Tally for accounts and inventory digitisation.
This has created jobs for Tally professionals who specialise in company specific customisation, deployment and supporting of the software platform. Drawing from this analogy, we will witness AI and AI enabled tools implementation and deployment professionals.
High quality audio-visual content generation has been limited to studios with sophisticated equipment. With the availability of AI-enabled content generation and editing apps, content creators in Tier 2 and 3 cities across the country can generate high quality content. It is now
possible to generate content in multiple languages. Moving forward, content creators with access to AI enabled tools will be able to create high quality content fast and this will generate more jobs.
AI-enabled tools are deployed on a cloud platform or on a device. Currently, learning the LLMs requires massive amounts of energy. Demand in AI scientists and AI Ops engineers will increase for continuous progress in more accurate, energy efficient, fair and explainable AI systems.
The same will also see a push in higher education for training of graduate researchers in AI systems. As ChatGPT was launched, a new job title — “prompt engineer” — was posted on job portals. These professionals are experts in interacting with LLM systems to extract the most relevant information. This is just an example of a new category of jobs, which has been created in the past six months.
Remote medicine and diagnostics will see a major boost with AI-enabled tools. This may lead to jobs generated for professionals who can assist clinical experts. On similar lines, experts who can validate reports generated by AI-enabled imaging tools will be required. Drug discovery already is getting a massive push due to AI.
We are living in exciting times. In the next few years, we will see new job descriptions and opportunities coming up.
There are concerns too. For one, there is an immediate need for AI ethics, law and policy professionals. There are important questions about the ownership of the data used for training AI systems and the ownership of the AI systems trained on
data created by third parties. Furthermore, there are concerns about fairness – How well an AI- enabled tool work when presented with data of person(s)/situation(s) of a particular culture, gender which are relatively hard to collect during the training process is an important question to think about.
Courtesy : The Indian Express