According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), artificial intelligence (AI) would
have an impact on about 40% of occupations worldwide; established economies are
anticipated to be more affected than developing markets and low-income nations.
To combat the effects of AI, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva urged governments to set up
social safety nets and provide retraining programs in a blog post.
“In most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality, a troubling trend that policymakers
must address proactively to prevent the technology from further stoking social tensions,” she
wrote ahead of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland,
where the topic will be a key talking point.
The event later this week will feature speeches by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Chief
Executive of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Sam Altman. The program also includes a debate
today titled “Generative AI: Steam Engine of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”
According to Georgieva’s blog, artificial intelligence (AI) is anticipated to have both positive
and negative effects on the labor market as more companies and employees use it.
Georgieva echoed earlier advisories from other specialists, predicting that industrialized
economies would experience a more severe impact than emerging ones, in part due to the
perception that manual laborers are less vulnerable than white-collar professionals.
For instance, AI may have an impact on up to 60% of jobs in more developed economies.
She estimated that about half of them might profit from the way AI increases productivity.
“For the other half, AI applications may execute key tasks currently performed by humans,
which could lower labor demand, leading to lower wages and reduced hiring,” said
Georgieva, citing the IMF’s findings.
“In the worst circumstances, some of these positions might vanish.”
AI is predicted to impact 26% and 40% of jobs in lower-income countries and emerging
economies, respectively. Low-income countries are developing nations with per capita
incomes below a specific threshold, such as Burundi and Sierra Leone, whereas emerging
markets are regions with continuous economic growth, such as Brazil and India.
“Many of these countries don’t have the infrastructure or skilled workforces to harness the
benefits of AI, raising the risk that over time the technology could worsen inequality,” warned
Georgieva.
She cautioned that the application of AI would raise the likelihood of social upheaval,
especially if younger, less seasoned workers used it to increase productivity while older
workers found it difficult to stay up.
With ChatGPT taking the globe by storm last year, AI became a major issue at the WEF in
Davos. Because it can produce articles, speeches, poems, and more, the generative AI-
powered chatbot phenomenon has generated discussions about how it can alter how people
operate all across the world.
Since then, advances in technology have increased the application of AI chatbots and
systems, bringing them into the mainstream and generating significant funding.
AI has already been mentioned explicitly by a few tech companies as the reason they are
reevaluating their workforce levels.
According to a March 2023 estimate by Goldman Sachs experts, widespread adoption of AI
might ultimately raise labor productivity and boost global GDP by 7% annually over a ten-
year period, even though workplaces may change.
Georgieva also mentioned how the application of AI could increase productivity and earnings
globally.
She wrote, “AI will transform the global economy." "Let's see to it that humanity benefits.”
