For all the doom and gloom about AI and white collar work, an interesting trend is emerging in job ads.
AI is starting to reshape the economy, but it could be for the better. · SEEK/Getty
AI is transforming the economy. But not how most people expected.
Prophecies and predictions of an 'AI jobpocalypse' for knowledge workers have failed to come to pass. In fact, something completely different is beginning to show up in the data for jobs ads in Australia.
That hasn't come as a surprise to renowend entrepreneur Mark Adams who helps run a venture capital fund that he says has so far invested about AUD$150 million in some 35 different AI-related companies.
One of the things about that is you really do learn the hard way, what actually is real about AI and what is kind of just hype and bulls**t, he told Yahoo Finance.
Adams has co-founded a number of companies including Codec, which pioneered award-winning AI that mapped internet communities as well as youth media empire VICE. Along the way he has worked with the likes of Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Leonardo DiCaprio and Barack Obama as he's earned the moniker of being Hollywood's 'AI insider' when it comes to digital transformation.
His outlook on the technology – and it's impact – remains rosier than most.
Mark Adams has had a storied run and is backing dozens of AI startup through his VC fund Arāya Ventures. · Mark Adams/Tax Institute
A majority of office jobs are made up of a myriad of tasks, with varying ability to be palmed off onto models, he said. AI is going to take some of those tasks. But that is not the same as it taking your job.
While companies are increasingly eager to adopt AI, that already means the bottom layer of tasks for a typical office worker such as downloading documents, drafting emails or building reports are being automated to a greater degree.
Do you really care if AI takes this layer away from you? So that you can spend more time on the layers above like trust building, relationship management, and kind of getting out there a bit more into the real world, Adams said.
For workers, our job then is just to elevate up the stack, towards the more specifically human things that only we can do.
Adams delivered the keynote address at the Australian Tax Institute's annual Tax Summit last week, where he told the Sydney audience the demise of the knowledge worker has been greatly exaggerated – but argued human workers will need to lean into their emotional intelligence to really succeed.
AI will always do what it does, but it doesn't know what you know, he said.
AI impact appearing in Aussie job ads
The impact of automation can be seen in new analysis conducted by online jobs platform SEEK released on Thursday. It shows a bifurcation in how generative AI appears to be impacting demand for early career roles from companies.
The SEEK report broke down the impact on jobs into two main categories – automation and augmentation. The former can replace a human worker on a given task, while the latter makes humans more efficient by allowing them to perform tasks easier or better.
As a result, office roles that have been highly augmented by AI are growing.
Jobs where generative AI is more likely to assist workers, SEEK's analysis showed the share of early-career job ads had increased since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, suggesting AI may be lowering the experience barrier for some workers in knowledge-based occupations, the report said.
AI may be increasing demand for junior workers in some white-collar roles, particularly where it helps workers do tasks more effectively rather than replacing them outright, SEEK Chief Economist Dr Blair Chapman said.
But those jobs with a high degree of total automation are going in the other direction, with the decline strengthening since 2023 and showing no clear sign of stabilising.
In other roles, AI appears to reduce demand by doing some tasks itself. This suggests the labour market effects of AI are still unfolding, Chapman said.
Augmented knowledge jobs are growing, according to the SEEK report. · SEEK
Even still, the impact is slight. Software and Applications Programmers, which had the highest automation exposure of the occupations analysed, recorded just a 0.3 percentage-point decline in the early-career share of job ads.
It's been a similar story elsewhere, with The Economist reporting this week that AI has been a net jobs creator in the US, including for white collar roles, despite certain customer service jobs made up of routine office tasks being disrupted.
The jobs apocalypse is postponed. An AI jobs boom is here, the Head of Economic Analysis of BBVA Research, Rafael Domenech, declared online.
Warning as global AI build ramps up in Australia
Like many other countries, Australia has found itself in the middle of a heated public debate about new data centres popping up in cities and suburbs around the nation.
The frenzied demand has been blamed for adding to inflation and dragging construction workers away from other sectors like housing.
But the trillion dollar question for markets and the tech giants behind it all is wether or not it will actually pay off in the end, with companies like Google and Meta issuing debt to build out massive data centre infrastructure.
Despite being an AI investor, Adams doesn't think it will end particularly well.
I can't really yet perceive – and maybe I'm naive – where and how the return on that investment is gonna come from, he told Yahoo Finance.
Data centres are popping up in our suburbs – and there's plenty more planned. · Yahoo Finance/Jason Murphy
He linked the current situation to the USSR during the space race where even if they win, they spend so much money that essentially, they lose.
If I was China, I would just flood the market with free and very cheap alternatives, which they're very capable of doing to the frontier models that America is building, he said.
A lot of businesses will find that difficult, of course, but for the normal consumer, I wonder whether or not they would actually care.
At that point, you've essentially hobbled the American economy by providing no possible way of paying back the debts that have been incurred by [some of] these companies.
If so, the big job losses from AI could come from an unexpected place.
