Riding the Wave of Change: How AI Will Phase Out Certain Careers Yet Spark Opportunities in Novel Domains

Riding the Wave of Change: How AI Will Phase Out Certain Careers Yet Spark Opportunities in Novel Domains | ZDNet

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A job ad appeared recently for an “AI competency leader,” which was a role that involved, “collaborating closely with cross-functional teams to develop and execute strategies that leverage generative artificial intelligence techniques across various domains.”

These kinds of adverts – for job roles that were unheard of even a year ago – are likely to become the norm in the AI era. While everyone in business wants to make the most of AI , it’s going to take more than development or data science skills to make the most of emerging technology. There’s a raft of responsibilities that are essential to AI efforts, from training algorithms to overseeing ethics.

New types of job roles are springing up across the business landscape, as observed by those in the industry.

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Close to seven in ten business leaders believe the rise of generative AI will lead to the emergence of new roles, including AI auditors, AI ethicists, and prompt engineers, a report out of Capgemini found. “We see roles emerging in AI management and digital transformation that focus on governance, strategy, stakeholder engagement and policy around AI integration,” Doug Ross, vice president and US generative AI Leader at Sogeti, part of Capgemini, told ZDNET. “Understanding how to implement trusted AI, including building solutions that are ethical, explainable, de-biased, stable and legally compliant will be important as LLMs and generative technologies become more integrated into critical business processes.”

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There are two levels of AI positions becoming apparent, says Robert Ghrist , associate dean for undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “The first is what you might call an AI specialist, someone who is broadly trained in AI from machine learning to neural nets, large language models, and more,” he explains.

The second category of AI jobs is more closely fused to broad-based business and managerial roles. “This is a more interesting class of jobs in the form of ‘AI plus X’, where ‘X’ is a variable such as law, medicine, or education,” Ghrist continues. “These will be more abundant yet harder to fill, requiring core expertise plus AI implementation skills.”

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Prompt engineering is also seen as a hot new job in the AI era. However, its long-term future as a professional pursuit is uncertain, says Tony Lee , CTO at Hyperscience: “I see it as a skill and expertise that is valuable and distinct. Is it a full-time job though? I’ll leave that to the hiring company to decide.”

While prompt-engineering skills are in demand now, Lee says the future might look different: “It’s a new way to interface with a computer that requires different skills. But as the interface becomes more conversational and more human-like, it remains to be seen if this is a new career path or just a point-in-time opportunity.”

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Looking deep into the future – let’s say a year or two in internet time – new roles focused on AI application adoption and management might come to the fore. These roles include positions such as, “AI trainers, AI auditors, and AI ethicists,” says Nick Magnuson , head of AI for Qlik.

“These roles really focus on the heart of AI – its data – while helping ensure the ethical use of the technology. AI trainers prepare and adjust the technology models, while AI auditors and AI ethicists ensure an organization’s data is not only accurate and trusted, but also reinforce the integrity of the AI and scale it across the business.”

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However, it’s also important to consider how AI is overtaking many of the lower-level tasks associated with IT development and management. Interestingly, Ghrist says that trend should be welcomed. “Nobody likes eliminating jobs, but AI usurping low-level tasks is good news. I both believe and hope that many tasks will be made obsolete by AI, starting with the most tedious, repetitive, and low-level,” he says. “Examples include low-level coding, updating legacy code, and implementing SDKs.”

Early in his career, Ghrist “worked in a magnetic-tape library for a mainframe computer and I am so happy that job no longer exists,” he recounts. “Now it’s done a billion times faster by a one-ounce, $15 flash drive.”

What’s already clear is that AI is poised to ease and automate a range of development tasks while still creating fresh opportunities for human talent. “Software engineering has gone from where developers wrote code from scratch, to the Stack Overflow era, and now to full AI-generated code,” says Lee. “Yet during this journey, the demand for top talent has only grown. I do not expect this demand to decrease, even as AI takes on more of the mechanical work.”

A critical, in-demand area is “skilled workers who can analyze data and train LLMs,” says Lee. “As more technical tasks are automated, the demand for human oversight in training data will be extremely relevant to ensure the technology can continue to complete complex tasks.”

Sogeti’s Ross expects to see skills such as data analytics, machine learning, and human-centered design “especially important for developing AI that complements the workforce. Combining technical expertise with a big-picture understanding of the business (people, processes, and organizational challenges) will be especially useful to manage change.”

Fundamental skillsets such as software engineering, cybersecurity, cloud architecture, and project management remain in high demand, Ross added. “As new technologies integrate deeply into business models, skills for developing digital solutions, managing IT systems holistically and leading transformation efforts will remain important,” he predicts.

Bernard Golden, a futurist, recently compiled a list of the new types of jobs likely to emerge around AI:

Generative design specialist: “This role will become increasingly popular across fields like architecture, product design, and engineering. Because generative AI can be used to create almost limitless design variations, experts will be needed to guide the AI and interpret its outputs to achieve optimal designs.”
AI input and output manager: This strategic role “will become increasingly important as companies grapple with considerations around data privacy, copyright, AI explainability, and AI bias.”
AI content reviewer/content auditor: “Human reviewers will be needed to assess the quality, accuracy, and appropriateness of AI-generated content.”
AI trainer: “These are professionals specialize in teaching and refining AI models.”
AI maintenance engineer: Oversees the updating of AI models, “ensuring systems run efficiently, and troubleshooting issues.”
AI security specialist: Oversees the defense of systems “against the malicious use of AI – and potentially harness AI to mitigate threats.”
AI instructor/AI literacy educator: Helps “teach individuals about AI’s workings, benefits, and challenges emerging.”
AI ethicist/AI ethics officer: Will “create and implement guidelines that govern an organization’s ethical, safe use of AI systems.”
AI compliance manager/AI compliance officer: Ensures “the business is acting within legal frameworks.”
AI personality designer: “Dedicated to creating engaging, likable ‘personalities’ for generative AI entities,” to “make interactions with generative AI tools feel more human-like.”

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Areas where managerial skills “will continue to shine and add value are around tasks dealing with ambiguity and supervising AI, creative tasks that require intuition and context, and roles that require cross team collaboration,” Lee adds.

Magnuson says it’s important to note how effective AI deployments require a range of skills that typically aren’t held by a single person. “Finding a capable head of AI that has both technical prowess and creative experience is crucial,” he says. “This leader will be able to assemble an AI team that checks all the boxes, and typically includes data scientists and machine-learning engineers that work alongside legal, IT, and HR teams.”

Lee says an example of such interdisciplinary collaboration might involve, “a front-end engineer sitting with a designer and a product manager to solve a usability problem. This is a challenge for AI today, as the human aspect of the usability problem is still best understood and solved by other humans.”

However, there’s no room for complacency. Ghrist says professionals should recognize there are no skills “for which we have an exclusive monopoly.” He continues: “AI will be able to augment all hard and soft skills in tech – no exceptions. Co-evolution is the key: We work together and adapt. As such, the most valuable skill is adaptability.”

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Still, certain foundational skills will remain exactly that – foundational. “Skills – from mathematics and computer science – will always be relevant as a precursor to specialized AI knowledge,” says Ghrist. “Coding will always be important, not because you will be coding, but because you will be managing a team of AI coders, and, like any good manager, you need to know enough to guide the team.”

Anything associated with math and computer science, “supercharges all other technical work, now and to come,” says Ghrist. Along with foundational capabilities, soft skills such as “communication, empathy, creativity, ambition, and more are increasingly of value.”

Professionals looking to advance in their careers should seek out courses and training programs, or focus on areas that incorporate AI skills. “I would encourage all professionals to gain a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of AI, including machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing,” says Magnuson. “Learning about AI and how it works is important for everybody – not just technical people – akin to how the internet is something we all have to understand.”

Ghrist advises professionals to focus on math and computer science, as “without them, the rest is a black box of action without understanding.” A second learning priority must be “the soft skill of adaptability,” he continues. “As AI tech increases super-linearly, the most difficult thing for most companies is going to be how to keep up. The best way for a professional to stay current is to have a well-curated social media feed – ignore the politics. Search for updates on the state of the art.”

As Ghrist concludes: “‘More math and more Twitter’ is eccentric advice, but we are in strange times.”