How Will ChatGPT Affect Jobs?

Since its quick and storm-like takeover of users’ day-to-day, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has passed medical school exams, software engineer coding interviews, the bar exam and much more.

More than anything, ChatGPT might just be the very first example of commercial adoption of an AI tool—and it’s proving to be more powerful by the day. But as technology like this gets adopted on such a wide scale, the questions about whether AI will ever replace humans in the corporate world are as pressing as ever.

So, will ChatGPT take away human jobs?

The truth is, it’s more complicated than a simple “yes” or “no” answer. The importance of ChatGPT’s rise lies in how valuable and powerful of a tool it has proven to be—and the ways in which it can push the boundaries of what we can and cannot accomplish.

The AI is not foolproof and is in its early stages of development—it’s still prone to bias, basic errors and misinformation, meaning that, despite the shocking progress it spearheads, there is still a longer way to go to achieve better accuracy and fewer risks involved in relying on it solely. This highlights the need for human judgment and expertise to be able to expertly navigate the results the AI generates, differentiate good and poor results and make the most of its power.

What ChatGPT represents is a revolution in the efficiency, effectiveness, speed and sustainability of the work we do. As more AI-powered tools emerge on the cusp of the wave OpenAI has created, it won’t be AI that will replace jobs. It will be professionals that know exactly how to leverage AI tools to replace those who don’t adapt and learn to use the power of tools to their advantage.

With that said, there are certainly some jobs that will likely go through a bigger transformation than others, and it’s important to be prepared for how the expectations and the nature of the jobs affected the most will change.

Let’s explore some of the most likely affected jobs and how to prepare for the upcoming shifts.

Communication And Media

Jobs across advertising, content creation, copywriting, copy editing and journalism will be among the first to feel the full impact of ChatGPT. Because the AI technology is inherently trained to analyze and understand textual data, it’s natural to assume that ChatGPT can easily transform jobs that tie into the media directly.

The technology can enable article writing, editing and fact-checking, script-writing for content creators, copywriting for social posts and ads and more.

With that said, there is a lot that goes into creating content that truly breaks through the clutter and cuts through the saturated noise on the internet. A lot of the day-to-day brainstorming, analysis and human judgment that media professionals bring to the table are not scalable or easy to automate—which means that ChatGPT can serve as an empowering tool rather than constitute a complete replacement for media jobs as they stand right now.

Customer Service And Engagement

For a long time now, chatbots have been taking over the conversations—at least many initial ones—with customers online. However, the natural flow and helpfulness of these conversations have been serious pain points for consumers due to the predetermined paths and lack of flexibility in regard to how far these conversations would be able to go based on each user’s individual needs.

Here’s where conversational AI comes into play: ChatGPT’s ability to have a human-like conversation with the user and address each individual concern they might have has the power to raise the bar of automation in customer service, replacing some of the upfront work needed to be done for agents to get to the bottom of each request and instead focus on high-value customers, retention and more complex cases that require human interaction and attention.

Software Engineering, Web Engineering And Coding

It’s no secret that software engineers are some of the most desired and highly regarded talents today. With that said, the job requires a lot of manual work, long sprints of close attention and quality assurance in order to build the sophisticated software we are so used to using today.

Where ChatGPT comes in is in its ability to generate code infinitely faster than a human can, introducing a whole new level of speed when it comes to building software or websites. Not only does it take on a lot of manual coding and building, but it also allows for faster and easier identification of bugs and inconsistencies that get in the way of faster releases.

All in all, just as with media, software engineering can leverage ChatGPT to increase code generation speed, cut resource costs and equip engineers with the right tools to up their individual and collective efficiency.

A Timely Question With A Complex Answer

Circling back to the original question—whether ChatGPT is here to replace human resources—the answer is not as straightforward, though in some cases, it may be. But more than anything, it’s going to set up those who are able to use it to their advantage for success in contrast to people who refuse to engage with the technology, and that’s a larger impact to consider.

Originally published in Forbes