Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest technology in a continuing series of innovations that threatens to destroy some jobs and transform many others. The International Monetary Fund warned at the beginning of the year that AI would affect 40% of jobs and worsen social inequality. IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva urged countries to develop a safety net to mitigate the impact on workers.
At the same time, the World Economic Forum estimated that this technology will destroy 85 million jobs by 2050, but will create a few more, a total of 97 million. Beyond the traditional narratives when we talk about the intersection between machines and humans, that of the apocalyptic and that of the integrated, to paraphrase Umberto Eco, artificial intelligence has already impacted the labor market with new jobs such as that of the director data architect, data translator, or user experience manager.
“First of all, there are a series of professionals who emerge from obtaining data, which is the raw material of any algorithm both offline and online. Secondly, there are professionals who help manage them and finally others who help exploit them,” explains the co-founder of Dribia Oleguer Sagarra, a company founded in 2016 dedicated to designing algorithms to optimize business processes. In fact, Dribia’s 40 jobs are the result of AI.
“We have been talking about this technology on a theoretical level for more than forty years and we have been using it for more than twenty years,” adds Oleguer. “If AI is part of the core of the business, the company hires these profiles directly, but when this does not happen, the usual thing is to outsource the service. The data translator is a rising figure because they are usually an employee with a long history in a certain sector who acquires data training to interact with the data department,” he adds.
Generative AI, which includes tools such as ChatGPT, Dall E or Stable Difusion, among many others, capable of generating new content from the orders of a human without technical knowledge, is beginning to have an undeniable impact in the workplace. In almost any sector, these tools complement human work, rather than replacing it: they help write emails or reports, make work presentations, program web pages, develop algorithms or do various calculations.
Beyond this complementarity, companies are in a research phase prior to incorporating generative technology into production processes. “One thing is the demos that we are seeing since the emergence of ChatGPT and another very different thing is the established things,” says Oleguer.
“Generative AI is so recent that the only job that has appeared since the emergence of ChatGPT is that of prompt generators, that is, people dedicated to giving precise instructions to one of these tools to obtain certain results, although the The danger it entails for companies is too high because it involves putting themselves in the hands of an external algorithm,” he adds.
While it is too early to count new jobs and those at risk, it seems clear that one of the sectors most affected by generative AI is the cultural industries. “AI will not take your job, but someone who masters this technology can,” says the creative director and professor of Communication at the Ramon Llull University, Marc Mallafré, a prompt generator in the advertising sector.
“Before the emergence of generative, to carry out a project I needed other professional profiles such as an illustrator to make storyboards, a 3D artist or a photography retoucher. Now I can do everything myself. So, in my sector, there are many profiles that are being affected by AI, while others are strengthened,” he adds.
Mallafré has specialized in generating generative images for the automotive sector, which he spreads through Instagram with good results: “It is what has helped me win jobs, not only in the automotive sector but in other industries, since they have published in several magazines, both in Japan and Italy; A Mexican band has bought an image from me for the cover of an album; An American advertising agency has asked me to create images for well-known car brands; A filmmaker, also Mexican, wants me to make conceptual designs to build a car for a movie, etc.,” he adds.
Regarding the skills necessary to dialogue with generative AI programs in the cultural industry, Mallafré highlights, beyond technical capabilities, having imagination, cultivating good cultural references and knowing how to write with the greatest precision to interact with the machine. “Writing is a growing skill,” she notes, “the more precise you are, the better.”
Asked if illustrators, photographers, models and even presenters will be replaced by a hologram generated by AI, Mallafré does not doubt that these programs will never completely replace humans, but will be complementary. “Increasingly, we will see things generated by AI and things that will be real,” he says. “There may even be a resurgence of the real,” he concludes.
