The McKinsey report comes at a time of debate about the potential economic impact of AI-powered chatbots on labour and the economy.
A robot that can talk and answer questions at a technology fair in Germany last April.
A new report estimates that half of all work will be automated in the next 10 to 40 years as artificial intelligence advances.
Image source: Axel Heimken/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Generative artificial intelligence” AI will create up to $4.4 trillion in annual value for the global economy, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report, which is one of the rosier predictions about the economic impact of the fast-developing technology.
Image Source: McKinsey
Generative AI, which includes chatbots such as ChatGPT that can generate text in response to prompts, can potentially increase productivity by saving 60 to 70 percent of workers’ time by automating their work, and between 2030 and 2060, half of all work will be automated, the report says.
McKinsey had previously predicted that AI would automate half of all work between 2035 and 2075, but the power of generative AI tools — which exploded onto the tech scene late last year, accelerated the firm’s forecast.
“Generative AI has the potential to change the anatomy of work by augmenting the skills of individual workers by automating some of their individual tasks,” the report says.
McKinsey’s report is one of the few to quantify the long-term impact of generative AI on the economy. The report comes at a time when Silicon Valley has been gripped by an enthusiasm for generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, and tech companies and venture capitalists are investing billions of dollars in the technology.The tools, some of which can also generate images and video and hold conversations, have sparked debate about how they will affect jobs and the global economy. Some experts have predicted that AI will displace people from their jobs, while others have said the tools can increase individual productivity.
Recently, Goldman Sachs published a report warning that AI could lead to job disruption and that some companies would benefit more from the technology than others. In April, a Stanford researcher and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a study showing that generative AI could increase the productivity of inexperienced call center workers by 35 percent. Any conclusions about the impact of technology may be premature. David Autor, an economics professor at M.I.T., warned that generative AI “will not be as miraculous as people claim”. “We are really still at an early stage,” he added.
Most economic studies on generative AI ignore other risks of the technology, such as the danger of it spreading misinformation and eventually escaping human control.
According to the McKinsey report, most of the economic value of generative AI will most likely come from helping workers automate tasks in customer operations, sales, software engineering and research and development. Generative AI can create “superpowers” for highly skilled workers, according to Lareina Yee, partner at McKinsey and author of the report, as the technology can summarize and edit content. “The most profound change we will see is the change in people, and that will require far more innovation and leadership than technology,” she said.
The report also outlines the challenges that industry leaders and regulators will face around AI, including concerns that the content generated by the tools could be misleading and inaccurate. Generative AI will be the next frontier of productivity. By automating work activities and augmenting the skills of individual workers, generative AI can transform industries, increase labour productivity and drive economic growth.
However, overcoming challenges and managing risks are crucial to fully exploiting the potential of generative AI. With effective workforce support and a collaborative approach, generative AI can usher in a more sustainable and inclusive world and ensure a prosperous future for all.