Workers are tinkering with ChatGPT and wondering: will this take my job?

In December, staff at the American Writers and Artists Institute — a 26-year-old advertising copywriter membership organization — realized something big was afoot.

The latest edition of ChatGPT, a “grand language model” that scours the web to answer questions and perform tasks on command, had just come out. His skills were amazing – and right in the bailiwick of people who make a living from content like copywriting and blog posts.

“They are horrified,” said Rebecca Matter, president of the institute. Over the holidays, she has been striving to organize a webinar on the pitfalls and potential of new artificial intelligence technology. More than 3,000 people signed up, she said, and the overall message was cautionary but reassuring: Authors could use ChatGPT to get tasks done faster and step into higher-level roles in content planning and search engine optimization.

“I think it will minimize short-form copy projects,” Ms. Matter said. “But on the other hand, I think there will be more opportunities for things like strategy.”

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the latest advance in a steady march of innovations that offered the potential to transform many professions and wipe out others, sometimes simultaneously. It is too early to count those who are able and who are at risk, or to estimate the overall impact on labor demand and productivity. But it seems clear that artificial intelligence will affect work in different ways than previous waves of technology.

The positive view of tools like ChatGPT is that they can complement human labor, not replace it. However, not all workers are confident about the likely impact.

Katie Brown is a fellow in the Chicago suburbs for a small nonprofit group focused on fighting domestic violence. She was shocked to learn in early February that a professional association for grant writers was promoting the use of artificial intelligence software that automatically completes parts of an application so humans just have to polish it before submitting it.

The platform, called Grantable, is based on the same technology as ChatGPT and markets itself to freelancers who bill through the application. This, she thought, clearly threatens opportunities in the industry.

“To me, it’s common sense: what do you think a small nonprofit organization will choose?” said Ms. Brown. “A person on a full-time salary and benefits, or someone equipped with AI that you don’t have to pay benefits for?”

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been working in the background of many companies for years, helping, for example, to evaluate a large number of possible decisions and to better match supply and demand. And many technological advances over the centuries have reduced the need for certain workers – although each time the jobs created have more than offset the number lost.

However, ChatGPT is the first that confronts such a wide range of employees so directly and is so accessible that people can use it in their own work. And it’s improving fast, with a new edition released this month. according to a Opinion poll In a study conducted by job search site ZipRecruiter following the release of ChatGPT, 62 percent of job seekers said they were worried artificial intelligence could derail their careers.

“ChatGPT made it more visible,” said Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute who studies the impact of automation. “So I think it raised questions about where schedules could be accelerated.”

That is also the conclusion of a White House report on the impact of AI technology, including ChatGPT. “The main risk of AI to the workforce lies in the general disruption it is likely to cause for workers, whether they find their jobs newly automated or that their work patterns have fundamentally changed,” the authors write.

For now, Guillermo Rubio has found that his job as a copywriter has changed significantly since he uses ChatGPT to generate blog post ideas, write first drafts of newsletters, create hundreds of slight variations on ad copy, and do research on a topic to prompt what he might write a whitepaper about.

Since he still charges his clients the same rates, the tool has simply allowed him to work less. However, if the current copy rate drops – which could happen with improved technology – he is confident he can move into content strategy consulting alongside production.

“I think people are more reserved and fearful for good reason,” said Mr. Rubio, who lives in Orange County, California. “You can look at it in a negative light or embrace it. I think the biggest advantage is that you have to be adaptable. You have to be open to it.”

After decades of study, researchers know a lot about the impact of automation on the workforce. Economists like Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that the technology has been around since the 1980s played a primary role in increasing income inequality. As unions atrophied and the training and retraining systems eroded, uncollege-educated workers saw their bargaining power weakened in the face of machines that could do rudimentary jobs.

However, the emergence of ChatGPT three months ago has sparked a series of studies based on the idea that this is not your average robot.

A research team an analysis performed shows the industries and occupations most exposed to artificial intelligence, based on a model adapted for generative language tools. High on the list were college liberal arts professors, legal service providers, insurance agents, and telemarketers. However, exposure alone does not determine whether the technology is likely to replace workers or simply enhance their skills.

Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang, graduate students at MIT, conducted one randomized controlled trial on experienced professionals in areas such as human relations and marketing. Participants were given assignments that typically take 20 to 30 minutes, such as writing press releases and briefings. Those who used ChatGPT completed tasks an average of 37 percent faster than those who didn’t – a significant increase in productivity. They also reported a 20 percent increase in job satisfaction.

One third learn — using a program developed by GitHub, owned by Microsoft — evaluated the impact of generative AI specifically on software developers. In a test run by GitHub researchers, developers given a starter task and encouraged to use the program called Copilot completed their task 55 percent faster than those who completed the task manually.

These productivity gains are unlike almost any seen since the widespread introduction of the personal computer.

“It seems to be doing something fundamentally different,” said David Autor, another MIT economist who advises Ms. Zhang and Mr. Noy. “Computers used to be powerful, but they simply and robotically did what people programmed them to do.” Generative artificial intelligence, on the other hand, is “adaptive, it learns and is able to flexibly solve problems”.

This is very clear to Peter Dolkens, a software developer for a company that mainly produces online tools for the sports industry. He has integrated ChatGPT into his work, for example to summarize blocks of code to help colleagues who take over the project after him and to suggest solutions to problems he is stumped with. If the answer isn’t perfect, he asks ChatGPT to refine it or try something else.

“It’s like a very well-read intern,” said Mr Dolkens, who works in London. “They may not have the experience to know how to use it, but they know all the words, they’ve read all the books and can find part of the way there.”

There’s another takeaway from the initial research: ChatGPT and Copilot promoted the least experienced employees the most. If this is true more generally, it could mitigate the inequality-widening effects of artificial intelligence.

On the other hand, if each worker becomes more productive, fewer workers will be needed to complete a set of tasks. Whether this translates into fewer jobs in specific industries depends on the demand for the service being provided, and the jobs that may be created to manage and direct the AI. Prompt engineering, for example, is already a skill that those who can play around with ChatGPT can add to their resume long enough.

With the demand for software code seeming insatiable and developer salaries extremely high, it seems unlikely that increasing productivity will preclude opportunities for humans to enter the field.

That won’t apply to every profession, however, and Dominic Russo is pretty sure it won’t apply to his: writing appeals to pharmacy benefits managers and insurance companies when they turn down prescriptions for expensive drugs. He’s been doing the job for about seven years and after studying journalism in college, he’s only built up expertise through hands-on training.

After ChatGPT came out, he asked them to write an appeal on behalf of someone with psoriasis who wanted the expensive drug Otezla. The result was good enough to make only a few changes before submitting.

“If you knew what to tell the AI, anyone could do the job,” Mr. Russo said. “That’s what really scares me. Why would a pharmacy pay me $70,000 a year when they can license the technology and pay people $12 an hour to roll out prompts?”

To protect himself from this possible future, Mr. Russo built his side business: Selling pizzas from his home in southern New Jersey, a business he doesn’t believe is being disrupted by artificial intelligence.

Still.