Increased adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) puts up to eight million UK jobs at risk with no gain in economic growth under a scenario envisaged in a new report.
The report from the Institute for Public Policy Research said this was the worst-case scenario, with back-office, entry-level and part-time jobs at the highest risk of being disrupted initially.
In a more hope-filled scenario of ‘full augmentation’ of generative AI, the report predicted there could be zero job 'displacement' and an economic boost of 13% of GDP.
Its central scenario suggests 4.4 million jobs disappear at the expense of economic gains of around 6.4% of GDP, around £144 billion per year.
Looking at what is possible 'here and now' based on the current capabilities of OpenAI's GPT4, the independent charity think tank's central scenario sees 545,000 jobs lost with GDP gains of 3.1% and a worst-case scenario of 1.5 million lost jobs with no GDP gains.
The best-case scenarios already seem implausible, with several companies having linked mass jobs cuts to increases use of AI, such as BT Group, Google and Palantir - and social media littered with personal stories.
Sobering….???? @EquityUK @bbcarts pic.twitter.com/9D0H928xJZ
— Sara Poyzer (@SaraPoyzer) March 26, 2024
The IPPR said the scenarios with widespread gains arising from AI deployment "can only be realised through a wide range of targeted policy interventions, which we call a job-centric industrial strategy for AI".
This would include a three-pronged approach to legislation: protecting existing jobs and ensuring gains for workers; boosting creation of new tasks, jobs and support job transitions; and addressing the fallout from lower labour demand.
A suggested policy would be to ringfence certain tasks to prevent them being fully automated, such as requiring medical diagnoses to be overseen and delivered by humans, or that early years education retains a human touch.