Jobs that involve working from home will likely be the first casualties of artificial intelligence (AI), a study by Oxford University academics has warned.
Suggesting tasks that can be done remotely could well be automated, Oxford professors Carl-Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne argued home working roles would likely be the first to disappear due to artificial programs.
“It now looks like AI may be able to replace human labour in many virtual settings, meaning that if a task can be done remotely, it can also be potentially automated,” Frey said.
Replacing in-person roles may be a more difficult task though, he reassured, given the value of meetings and real-life office-based conversations were harder to replicate.
“In-person interactions remain valuable, and such real-life interactions cannot be readily substituted,” he added.
The pair had predicted in 2013 that 47% of jobs were ultimately at risk from AI, with their latest subject paper due to be released in January.
Though remote roles are indeed at risk, creative and high-stakes jobs will be harder to automate and will therefore likely still require humans, it finds.
Inaccuracies and so-called “hallucinations” with AI-generated content could also hold the technology back.
Many firms have already embraced AI models, with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT late last year kickstarting a heated competition among tech giants to develop such programs.
Given the rapid uptake of the technology, regulators have moved to find ways to govern its development, including the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority on Monday ahead of the world’s first AI summit later this year.