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Academia has long debated the impact of AI on the future workforce. Some leading economists argue that this technology will lead to mass job losses, while others believe it will create new jobs. However, a recent research report examines the impact of new technology on everyday workers and finds that while productivity may indeed increase, it may come at a cost. I’m doing it.
A doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology investigated the impact of introducing AI tools to 1,018 scientists working at a large U.S.-based research and development laboratory starting in May 2022. He found that this technology facilitated new discoveries and increased R&D spending by 17%. New products are created among these workers.
“The most exciting thing about AI may be its potential to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation,” researcher Aiden Toner Rogers told the Wall Street Journal. “This will be a huge benefit.”
But AI has had other impacts as well. The tool helped generate a variety of “recipes” for new compounds and accounted for 57% of scientists’ “idea generation.” This means that “important, creative parts of the process have been automated,” Toner-Rogers said.
Overall, scientists’ primary work has shifted from their own initial thinking to evaluating AI-driven ideas, many of which have not worked out well in the long term. It also affected worker happiness, with 82% of those who used the tool reporting a decrease in job satisfaction, the study concluded.
“I couldn’t help but feel that much of the education I had received was now worthless,” one scientist who participated in the study told the Wall Street Journal.
Admittedly, this is just one study, and the AI revolution is still in its early stages, but it serves as a potential warning to employers about the drawbacks of introducing this technology to their workforces. I will. And that can dramatically change how people feel about the future of their chosen profession.
Britt Morse
brit.morse@fortune.com
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This article originally appeared on Fortune.com
