Will a robot take YOUR job? Study reveals the careers that face the highest risk of being replaced by AI – with call centre workers, English and History teachers topping the list

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are certainly impressive at their ability to perform complicated tasks once thought only capable to humans.

The revolutionary ChatGPT has been used to pass exams, deliver a sermon, write software and give relationship advice — to name just a handful of its functions.

But, for some people, these technologies have raised a scary question — could they take my job?

A study from Princeton University in New Jersey, US has revealed the 20 occupations most at risk of being made redundant thanks to AI.

Taking the top spot is call centre operator, but the following eight are all teachers of different disciplines, including languages, history, law and religion.

The authors wrote: ‘The effect of AI on work will likely be multi-faceted. In some cases, AI may substitute for work previously done by humans, and in other cases, AI may complement work done by humans.

‘A prominent example of how AI capabilities continue to advance are the recent improvements in AI language modeling.

‘In particular, ChatGPT, a language modeler released by OpenAI in late 2022, has garnered a huge amount of attention and controversy.’

For their study, published on arXiv, the researchers first constructed an algorithm which measures the extent a 800 occupations could be automated by AI.

They did this by linking 10 AI-powered applications, like translation, language modelling and image generation, to 52 human abilities, like oral comprehension and arm-hand steadiness.

The results revealed the top 20 jobs that could have the largest proportion of their workload taken over by AI technology.

Many of these jobs are high-paying roles that require a significant level of education, including actuaries, budget analysts, accountants and judges.

But when the study authors adjusted the algorithm to account for significant advances in language modelling we have seen over the past few months, it gave a different list of at-risk jobs.

Call centre workers were ranked as the most at risk, which may not be a surprise as many companies currently use AI-powered chatbots for this position.

Lyft, Spotify and Mastercard are just several in the large group that prompt users to ask questions to a chatbot to direct their queries better.

The researchers wrote: ‘One might imagine that human telemarketers could benefit from language modeling being used to augment their work. 

‘For example, customer responses can be fed into a language modeling engine in real time and relevant, customer-specific prompts quickly fed to the telemarketer.

‘Or, one might imagine that human telemarketers are substituted with language modeling enabled bots.’ 

However, 14 out of the 20 occupations were higher education teachers in different disciplines, including History, Geography, Religion, Sociology and English.

The authors note ‘occupations in the field of education are likely to be relatively more impacted by advances in language modeling than other occupations’ (stock image)

Call centre workers were ranked as the most at risk, which may not be a surprise as many companies currently use AI-powered chatbots for this position (stock image)

The team notes that ‘occupations in the field of education are likely to be relatively more impacted by advances in language modeling than other occupations.’

The study comes shortly after researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne revealed which jobs they thought were the most and least likely to be taken by robots.

Their findings suggest that meat packers, cleaners and builders face the highest risk of being replaced by machines, while teachers, lawyers and physicists are safe.

‘The key challenge for society today is how to become resilient against automation,’ explained Professor Rafael Lalive, who co-led the study.

‘Our work provides detailed career advice for workers who face high risks of automation, which allows them to take on more secure jobs while re-using many of the skills acquired on the old job.’

Based on the findings, the researchers developed a tool that revealed the automation risk of your job, and how you could reuse your abilities.   

Almost 40% of time spent on household chores will be automated by 2033, experts claim 

Having a never-ending list of household chores is something we could all do without. 

But relief is in sight, as experts say we could be spending 39 per cent less time on these tiresome tasks in 10 years. 

That’s because many household chores will be automated, according to a study led by the University of Oxford. 

Grocery shopping is the task predicted to see the largest reduction in human input, with 59 per cent of the effort handed over to algorithms and robots.

But when it comes to physical childcare, humans will still take on most of the responsibility, with tech predicted to take over just 20 per cent of jobs.

Read more here 

The percentage reduction in time we will spend doing different chores due to automation in five and ten years’ time, as predicted by experts