The Future of Work: AI's Next Targets
An OpenAI executive has identified three industries that are poised for significant transformation due to artificial intelligence, suggesting that certain white-collar jobs may soon be automated.
OpenAI's head of business products flagged 3 jobs that could be automated in the next few years. (JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP via Getty Images)
Life Sciences and Pharma: The First Frontier
Olivier Godement, head of product for business products at OpenAI, shared his insights on the "Unsupervised Learning" podcast, highlighting life sciences and pharmaceutical companies as his top pick for industries facing imminent change.
"My bet is often on life sciences, pharma companies," Godement said, explaining that while drug design involves crucial research and experimentation, the administrative processes surrounding drug approval present a prime opportunity for automation.
"The time it takes from once you lock the recipe of a drug to having that drug on the market is months, sometimes years," he noted. "Turns out the models are pretty good at that. They're pretty good at aggregating, consolidating tons of structured, unstructured data, spotting the different changes in documents."
Software Engineering: Automation on the Horizon
While complete automation of software engineering roles hasn't arrived yet, Godement sees a clear path forward.
"The automation is probably not yet at the level of automating completely the job of a software engineer, but I think we have a line of sight essentially to get there," he stated.
This perspective aligns with broader industry trends. An Indeed study from October found that software engineers, quality assurance engineers, product managers, and project managers were the four tech jobs most affected by recent layoffs and reorganizations.
Customer Service and Sales: The Next Wave
Godement also pointed to customer-oriented roles as ripe for automation, citing his work with telecommunications company T-Mobile.
"I've been working a bunch with the folks at T-Mobile to essentially provide a better experience to their customers, and we're starting to achieve fairly good results in terms of quality at a meaningful scale," he explained. "My sense is we'll probably be surprised in the next year or two on the amount of tasks that can be automated reliably."
The Broader Context: AI Leaders Weigh In
Godement's observations reflect a growing consensus among AI experts about the vulnerability of certain white-collar positions. Geoffrey Hinton, often called the "Godfather of AI," has similarly warned about the automation potential for intellectual labor.
"For mundane intellectual labor, AI is just going to replace everybody," Hinton said in a June podcast. He specifically identified paralegals as at risk and expressed concern for call center workers, stating he'd be "terrified" if he worked in such an environment.
Hinton did offer some reassurance for those in physically demanding roles: "I'd say it's going to be a long time before it's as good at physical manipulation. So a good bet would be to be a plumber."
The Timeline for Change
While Godement acknowledges that we haven't reached a stage where "any white collar job" can be automated in just a day, he sees strong use cases emerging in coding and customer service. The coming years may bring surprising levels of automation across these fields, fundamentally reshaping how work is performed in these industries.
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