Will ChatGPT steal your job sometime soon? This software is powerful, but I do not see it becoming the life changing, society upending technology that some of the more breathless tweets and reports about ChatGPT I have read indicate.
There is something peculiar about technological advancement in that it can take challenging work out of the hands of humans while simultaneously leading to more work. Consider how Email removed burdens of paper mail and physical communications but also made it vastly easier and effectively free to reach out to someone (your inbox is showing you how much work the paper-digital transition is "saving" in this case).
I could provide countless similar examples from recent memory to centuries ago like the cotton gin and the automobile.
Great minds and not so great minds from Norbert Wiener down to the Luddites have been concerned about technology replacing humans and the catastrophic impact mass unemployment could have long before AI or modern computers arrived on the market.
However, even the most Jeremiah-ish of these worries have yet to prove true and computing capacity alone has advanced exponentially with remarkable consistency since Weiner's time (see Moore's law).
This does not mean that the concerns are irrelevant, but that they are misguided. Observation of tech advancement over time shows that it may make jobs less physically taxing and time consuming, while also opening human capital (time/labor capacity). When tech advances, we often use the suddenly saved time and energy to a) manage the new tech (e.g., new jobs) and b) focus on innovating in ways that previous methods of production would not allow for.
From 1969 -2020 alone, American economic productivity has increased by 61%. While hourly pay has lagged the percentage growth of productivity, there are factors far beyond technology (e.g., mass immigration) that play a role in wage growth (or lack thereof). The period of 1969-2020 saw the most remarkable shift in technology since the industrial revolution and rather than removing work from the hands of humans, it has increased our productivity even as the population has continued to grow, and US unemployment remains near record lows.
In fairness to those concerned, AI and ChatGPT will make some jobs redundant. However, if history has told us anything, they will create new work, much of which we cannot yet predict (did anyone make 6 figures as a social media manager in 2000?).
Just as Google Translate has not eliminated translator jobs or traditional means of language learning, ChatGPT will not steal your job tomorrow or replace all or even a sizable portion of human writing and thinking. This is not only clear based on its limited capabilities, which will grow more advanced, but based on the general laws of economics.
If ChatGPT provides enormous value, it will be able to be sold as a AI as a service (already happening with its API and more), and be used for other means of profit. This means that while valuable, it will not be viable in many circumstances where the cost of using it does not provide enough benefit compared to current expenses (e.g., if low paid overseas bloggers are cheap, the move to ChatGPT may not make financial sense for a marketing company). One could compare this situation to costly automation tools not replacing most fast-food jobs despite worries over recent decades.
Further, there are legal and regulatory realities that dull the cutting edge of any rapid social change that technological advancements might theoretically create. On the legal side, we do not yet know if ChatGPT will create copyright or plagiarism concerns like AI Art lawsuits involving major companies are currently considering. Lawsuits aside, AI tools, just like social media giants in recent years, will undoubtedly face regulatory challenges in the US, EU, and beyond that will slow their potential to upend society.
So, will ChatGPT steal your job? Without knowing what your job is I can say with confidence that the answer is almost certainly no, at least not before you can find other work that pays well and helps you maintain your standard of living. If anything, it might make your job easier and your skills more valuable.
It is reasonable to worry about technology advancing and how it will impact society, but rumors of a coming AI apocalypse are exaggerated.
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