Nowadays, many people believe that the increasing usage of artificial intelligence in the industry will benefit society, whereas others state that its eventual consequences are going to be devastating.
First of all, the primary reason behind the advantages of embracing artificial intelligence is the productivity it would bring. To specify, industries that adapt to automation through the utilisation of artificial intelligence would be capable of producing much greater amount of products at a lower cost. For this reason, the cost of many products might decline in the long term, which would definitely have a positive impact on the consumer market and would lead to increasing revenue and an increasing number of customers; hence, both sides benefit from this condition. For instance, last time a major automation occurred back during the Industrial Revolution, the price of many products declined, which broadened the consumer market significantly.
On the other hand, with the rise of artificial intelligence and a higher automation rate that wasn’t seen in history, there is a widespread concern that this technology would result in a spike in the unemployment rate as well as crashes in economies all over the world. To clarify, this particular tool allows employers to replace the work of dozens of people and implement it at lower costs, requiring much fewer employees to monitor the entire cycle of work. As a result, the number of workplaces would shrink, eventually leading to an increased unemployment rate and a widely spread social disruption in human society. For instance, since 2022, when OpenAI released its first AI model named ChatGPT, the number of workplaces for Software Engineers has declined significantly, with fewer people required in this field due to high automation.
From my standpoint, the situation might have mixed views; however, I believe that the era we are entering is transitional and would include a huge number of hardships and challenges. To specify, historically, these transitional periods when sharp enhancements in the technological field occur are mostly accompanied by a high disruption rate in society, which is then stabilised by new jobs created due to the embracement of that exact technology. For instance, during the Industrial revolution same condition took place: people were replaced by machines and fewer employees guided them, which led to a sharp rise in the unemployment rate. However, eventually new jobs were created, and all of those individuals left without work gained an opportunity to be employed again.
In conclusion, eventually artificial intelligence will create even more jobs and will help to make our world better in many aspects; the only issue regarding it is the transitional period of adaptation to it, which would be accompanied by many layoffs and big structural changes