“We are not destined to be replaced by machines, no matter how “intelligent” they may be”

SWill we be replaced by machines as ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence (GAI) systems are deployed? The first announcements of massive layoffs, “officially” justified by the lower cost of algorithmic solutions, are rightly worrying: is technological progress making us relive the desertification of the countryside a hundred years later, with today’s employees echoing to the peasants of yesterday?

Part of the answer unfortunately seems hidden in the question: yes, technological transformations modify the structure of work, and a poorly executed transition can be dramatic for the generations (and ecosystems) who suffer it.

However, it can be accompanied by very strong social progress, a reduction in poverty and inequalities, and a strengthening of individual freedoms and leisure. Who would really like our economic and social structure to still be that of the III^e Republic ? Sixty percent of today’s jobs did not exist in 1945and 85% of job growth is linked to technological progress.

A simple adaptation

We are not destined to be replaced by machines, no matter how “intelligent” they may be. A study from the University of Pennsylvania and OpenAI showed that if 80% of jobs can be affected by the deployment of AGI, large language models or image generation, in reality, within these jobs, on average only 10% of the tasks performed are affected .

Most professions will only experience a simple adaptation, potentially very positive: according to an experiment by Harvard Business School on Boston Consulting Group consultants, employees can complete 12% more tasks, 25% faster, with a 40% improvement in quality using IAG. These results are not limited to so-called “cognitive” workers.

A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), to which Metalab de l’Essec contributed for the French part, showed that all sectors are affected by AI, including the manufacturing sector: assembly line operators, for example, benefit greatly, in their maintenance work, from the quality of breakdown predictions provided by AI.

A company with a very short-term, or “myopic,” vision could deduce that it is possible, thanks to AGI, to do better with fewer people, and therefore make layoffs.

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