What does it mean?
Microsoft is to replace tens of contract journalists working on its MSN website and use automated systems to select news stories instead. We have been hearing and reading about the displacement of jobs by AI and robots for a while now, and this is another example of a white collar job being automated. One of the affected journalists said: “I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI is going to take all our jobs – now it’s taken mine.”
So what?
This is another example of another job being automated, a job that a decade ago nobody would think was possible automating, or at least not so soon. Still the jury is out on whether automation produced by the advances of AI will destroy more jobs than what it will create, but even if many new jobs are created millions of new unemployed people will have to train and learn new skills.
Today it’s journalists, will writers and poets be replaced tomorrow? Will the bestsellers of the 2030s be written by machines?
What’s next?
As a society we need to think carefully about automation and the risks and opportunities, benefits and drawbacks it presents. I don’t think it is a process that can be stopped, even if we wanted to (which isn’t clear we would in view of the multiple benefits it will bring us), but at least we should think of the necessary measures to mitigate the risk it will also bring.
You can find more information HERE
UPDATE 13/06/2020 – related news: Microsoft robot editor confuses mixed-race Little Mix singers
