Experts decode the jobs, roles that ChatGPT may make a meal of

Experts suggest that professionals remain abreast of industry trends and developments in the talent market.

The fear of artificial intelligence, or AI, replacing human workers has been rekindled with the advent of ChatGPT. In January, the highly advanced AI language model “passed” a university-level exam after a former student made it write an essay on social policy and sent it for grading to a professor at a Russell Group university.

Yet, experts say the ChatGPT technology is still evolving and it would take another seven-10 years for it to impact the employment market for next-level roles.

“ChatGPT has the potential to disrupt certain industries, but it is unlikely to immediately cause job losses,” said Aditya Narayan Mishra, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of CIEL HR Services.

Judging from its potential, ChatGPT has a fair chance of taking over some. What are those?

Entry and junior-level jobs

ChatGPT is a potential threat to the roles at entry and junior organisational levels, Mishra said.

Jobs such as software programmer, software tester, helpdesk analyst, telesales, customer service, content creator, secondary research and design may feel the impact, he added.

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Mishra says ChatGPT may reduce the number of people required to get a job done in certain roles. Even so, more jobs will be created in education, media, healthcare, data processing, research, innovation and so on to process and analyse the astronomical amount of data generated daily.

Jobs with repetitive tasks

Talent experts have told Moneycontrol that ChatGPT technology can help streamline Human Resource (HR) processes by automating repetitive tasks and allowing HR professionals to focus on strategic and high-value activities.

“For example, to perform multiple tasks like handling employee queries, drafting HR policies, writing job descriptions, analysing databases, conducting employee surveys, etc., would require multiple employees..,” said Sarvesh Agrawal, founder and CEO of Internshala, a career-tech platform.

With the help of ChatGPT, he said a smaller number of professionals may be able to perform the same tasks as efficiently.

Also read | ChatGPT: Educationists divided over benefits, some say it can disincentivise learning

S Pasupathi, Chief Operating Officer of HirePro, a recruitment automation and assessment solutions provider, believes ChatGPT can support companies with email writing assistants, data entry clerks, chatbots and conversational User Interface (UI) developers, and especially content writers.

Tasks with minimal scope for creativity

The impact of such technologies on the job market depends on their adoption in various industries, observed Anuj Agarwal, founder & CEO of Zyoin, a recruitment firm.

“Meanwhile, it is easy to say that jobs which require simple tasks to be actioned will get impacted, and jobs which require advanced human skills such as creativity, innovation, empathy, critical thinking etc, will not be impacted,” he said.

Here, jobs for generating social media posts and graphics are under threat in light of AI tools doing the same work within a few minutes.

How to save your jobs?

ChatGPT is still an AI language model, and Kalyan Durairaj hasn't seen it empathise or apply emotional intelligence or human judgement, especially in understanding human nuances in complex situations.

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“Professionals, for example in customer service, must elevate themselves to address high-value and complex customer problems,” said the Director of People, Asia-Pacific, at FourKites, a supply chain intelligence platform.

He added: “Applying the personal and human touch to every interaction is more important than ever.”

Experts also suggest that professionals remain abreast of industry trends and developments in the talent market.

“Develop and maintain a portfolio of technical and soft skills to remain competitive and increase job security in the long-term,” said Ravinder Goyal, co-founder & MD of Erekrut HR Automation Solutions.

Similarly, HirePro’s Pasupathi said that by developing and refining skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and so on, professionals can position themselves as valuable assets in the job market, regardless of advances in technology and automation.