Value of creativity and design to increase as AI continues to scale, finds IBM study

New technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to eventually change 100% of jobs as they continue to scale, but few jobs will actually disappear. According to research from?the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab titled "The Future of Work: How New Technologies Are Transforming Tasks", what will fundamentally change is the way individuals work.

As technology reduces the cost of some tasks, the value of the remaining tasks that make up an occupation increases. Tasks that are grounded in intellectual skill and insight as well as require, to some degree, physical flexibility, common sense, judgment, intuition, creativity, and spoken language have tended to increase in value.

Design tasks, such as graphic and visual design, industrial design, user interface, user experience, and presentation design, have increased in value consistently across occupations and wage groups. This is especially so for mid-wage sales occupations, high-wage computer and mathematics occupations.

Annual wages for design tasks such as presentation design or digital design, have also increased for individuals in low-wage personal care and services occupations, such as hairstylists and fitness trainers. The growth in value of design and industry knowledge tasks could reflect the innovative and intellectual skills required to bring to together data, trends, and experience.

According to IBM's report, design, generally, and design thinking, specifically, often require deep insight and experience. Design thinking is intended to capture the needs and requirements of clients, markets and organisations and thus requires deep knowledge of a wide range of economic activity.

Meanwhile, industry knowledge tasks are on the rise in high-wage business and finance occupations. Overall, the report found that high wage workers increased their focus on design, information technology, legal, marketing, media, and writing. Conversely, tasks that have experienced a dip in value and could have been substituted include healthcare, IT, media and writing, legal, and manufacturing and production, the report said.

Across all three wage groups, the tasks that have been consistently more highly valued and less likely to be automated are?administrative, design, industry knowledge, and personal care and services tasks. The report noted that all these tasks require a substantial grounding in intellectual skill and insight. It added that to a certain degree, all of them require physical flexibility, common sense, judgment, intuition, creativity, and spoken language.

(Read also: Decorator to problem solver: Why designers should have a seat at the table)

Dip in tasks done by humans

IBM's report found that tasks that are more likely to be done by AI or machine learning are disappearing from employers' job requirements more often than those more likely to be done by a worker. The decreased task requirements may likely be due to employers seeking greater focus from workers and the early adoption of AI and machine learning, indicating a fundamental shift in the way work gets done.

Across more than 18,500 tasks, for each occupation, on average, workers were asked to perform 3.7 fewer tasks overall in 2017 than seven years earlier.?Among tasks that are more suitable for machine learning, such as scheduling and credential validation, workers, by occupation, were asked to perform 4.3 fewer tasks.?Among tasks that are less suitable for machine learning ,such as design, industry knowledge, workers, by occupation, were asked to perform 2.9 fewer tasks.?The report said that this reflects a 46% larger decline in demand for tasks that are more likely to be suitable for machine learning, compared to those that are less likely.

The report said that new technologies such as AI have just begun to transform work and while the rate and pace of change is currently slow, it is likely to accelerate as more AI solutions are adopted throughout the economy. As such, employees have time to adapt by learning or honing skills that require innovation, creative thinking, or deep insight and experience. Meanwhile, employers across all industries should begin to focus on reskilling their workforces, redesigning job roles and supporting career advancement.

Martin Fleming, vice president and chief economist of IBM, said as new?technologies continue to scale within businesses and across industries, it is the company's responsibility as innovators to understand not only the business process implications, but also the societal impact.

"To that end, this empirical research from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab sheds new light on how tasks are reorganizing between people and machines as a result of AI and new technologies," he added.

The research used advanced machine learning techniques to analyse 170 million online job postings in the US between 2010 and 2017. It shows, in the early stages of AI adoption, how tasks of individual jobs are transforming and the impact on employment and wages.

(Photo courtesy: 123RF)