Is AI coming for your job? CEO warns 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs at risk

As artificial intelligence (AI) development continues to accelerate at a steady pace, the alarm continues to sound over what this means for job security. 

This was after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that it could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs over the next five years.

RELATED: The AI revolution and jobs: We ALL have to become 'solutionists', says author

Wade Seale, Africa AI Ethics Carnegie Corporation New York Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (Huma) at UCT, argued that while many AI companies have been feeding off of paid marketing, creating a fear around the ‘coulds’ and ‘what ifs’, there is a level of concern. 

“Consider the fact that AI is becoming more and more capable, it is slowly but surely sneaking up on us. A few years ago, seasoned copywriters were able to spot that a piece of writing was produced by an AI, which has now vanished, and we have passed that stage.”

AI tools have greatly advanced in replacing roles in data, routine analysis, and administrative tasks.

Seale added that while many have argued that people using AI, creating the prompts, would replace people who don’t use AI, that is no longer the case.

RELATED: How to use AI to optimise your job search

“Prompting is fast disappearing, it is not going to be this major career path that you can choose. And if you play with AI now, you will find that you speak to it in plain English, and it is quite intuitive.

“AI’s ability to mimic human beings is too good. So, I am concerned that accountants, journalists, copywriters, SEO, lawyers… I can’t see how these jobs are not impacted in a major way by AI,” he said.

To listen to Seale in conversation with CapeTalk’s Clarence Ford, click the audio player below: