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The pace of digital transformation today is being called the fourth industrial revolution, and artificial intelligence is driving it. We’ve come a very long way since the managed IT systems banks used in the 90s and manpowered production lines at factories – which up until recently were the only way to keep things chugging along.

Now, artificial intelligence, robotics and machines are able to handle processes that were once the sole expertise of humans. But does this mean less jobs for humans? And is digital transformation a serious threat to the human workforce?

Job losses are certain

We can’t gloss over the fact that automation invariably means that human workers are replaced. If you want a stark example, some automotive companies have almost now fully replaced the human assembly line with robots that do the job for them. Then there’s lights-out manufacturing, which is fully automated with no human presence.

Banking is another industry that’s utilised artificial intelligence to the detriment of the human workforce. Morgan Stanley now has an AI fraud detection team, while here in the UK NatWest has deployed a chat bot called ‘Cora’ to handle customer service queries online – a staggering 100,000 per month and rising.

But new opportunities will be created

Digital transformation, automation, artificial intelligence –they aren’t doom and gloom for humans when you consider the roles they’ll largely take over. Mundane work will be automated, yes, but innovation and new processes? They’ll be developed and managed by humans, which means lots of new opportunities and jobs.

As we do away with miscellaneous work and give people skilled jobs, ideas generate, and innovation occurs. Humans are the driving force behind this. They are the primary cog in a system that demands constant acceleration to develop.

Job losses caused by digital transformation will be offset by the creation of new jobs. That’s a certainty. The question is, to what extent?

Crunching the numbers

While there’s a certain amount of guesswork in tallying up job losses and new jobs created by digital transformation, The World Economic Forum has given us some numbers to crunch on a global scale. They say that in the 15 leading global economies, there’ll be 7.1 million job losses and 2 million new jobs created – a shortfall of 5.1 million jobs.

Thankfully, optimists have something to shout about. A report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, for the UK job market, found that artificial intelligence will create more than 7.2 million new jobs in healthcare, science and education by 2037. That’s 200k more jobs than it is set to displace.

The biggest benefactors will be health and social, and scientific and technical, with a 22pc and 16pc increase in jobs respectively by 2037. The headline here is a potent one – artificial intelligence will create more jobs than it destroys. Forms of smart automation will replace unskilled workers – so long as they outperform them and bring profitability to the adopter. But some sectors will flourish under the change, with a welcome boost in skilled jobs and innovation.

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